¥* 


GENESIS    OF   THE    SOCIAL 
CONSCIENCE 


AGENESIS    OF   THE    SOCIAL 
CONSCIENCE 


THE   RELATION   BETWEEN  THE    ESTABLISHMENT 

OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN   EUROPE  AND 

THE   SOCIAL  QUESTION 


BY 


H.   S.   NASH 


PROFESSOR  IN   THE   EPISCOPAL  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 
AT  CAMBRIDGE 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
I897 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1897, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  April,  1897.       Reprinted  September, 
1897. 


Norfooob 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

How  the  Establishment  of  Christianity  in  Europe  created  a 

Question •        •""'    •         •         l 

II 

What  Greece  and  Rome  contributed  to  the  Campaign 
against  Caste.  Their  Definition  of  the  Universal  Indi- 
vidual and  their  Lack  of  Power  to  drive  it  Home  .  27 

III 

Biblical  Monotheism  puts  the  World  in  the  Service  of  God, 
and  conceives  God  as  an  Infinite  Missionary  Force  in 
the  Service  of  the  Lowly  .  .  .  .  -63 

IV 

How  the  Separation  of  Church  and  State  was  Necessary, 
to  the  End  that  the  Definition  of  the  Individual  might 
be  completed.  The  Common  Man  gains  thereby  a 
Value  above  the  Market  Price 98 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  Church,  the  Transcendence  of  the 
Idea  of  God,  and  the  Isolation  of  the  Moral  Ideal  in 
the  Monastery,  raised  the  Man  without  a  Grandfather 
to  the  Spiritual  Peerage 146 


viii  CONTENTS 

i 

VI 

PAGE 

History,  not  Cosmology,  is  the  Marrow  of  the  Christian 
View  of  the  Universe.  Communism  behind  the  Mon- 
astery Walls.  The  Infinite  Worth  of  the  Common 
Man  in  Relation  to  the  Category  of  Duty  in  Ethics  .  185 

VII 
The  Creation  of  the  Reformer's  Conscience        .         .        .     223 

VIII 

The  Eighteenth  Century  as  the  Open  Ground  upon  which 
the  New  Definition  deployed  its  Forces.  The  Soul 
becomes  a  Citizen  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  263 


The  numerals  in  the  text  refer  to  the  Notes  at  the  end  of  the  book. 


GENESIS    OF   THE    SOCIAL 
CONSCIENCE 


MY  aim  is  to  show  how  the  social  question  strikes 
its  roots  into  the  soil  of  that  Mediterranean  civiliza- 
tion in  which  Antiquity  summed  itself  up,  and  out  of 
which  Modernity  issued.  Aristotle  declares  in  his 
Poetics  that  History  is  less  ethical  than  the  Drama, 
and  therefore  less  cleansing.  If,  however,  it  be  possi- 
ble to  find  a  clear  thread  of  purpose  running  through 
the  time-process,  be  it  ever  so  slight,  History  itself 
becomes  a  drama,  and  the  most  cleansing  of  all 
dramas.  It  was  because  Aristotle  saw  little  or  no 
continuity,  almost  no  steady,  divine  purpose  in  His- 
tory, that  he  estimated  it  so  lightly.  But  our  minds 
cannot  walk  the  path  from  the  first  fire,  kindled  by 
human  art  in  the  thick  of  the  forest  primeval,  down 
to  the  time  when  the  machinery  of  the  World's  Fair 
in  Chicago  was  all  set  in  motion  by  touching  a  lit- 
tle button,  without  exaltation.  Much  more  does  it 
cleanse  us  of  impatience  and  fear  to  see  a  terrible 
yet  inevitable  and  inspiring  question  in  the  light  of 
universal  history,  which,  for  our  experience,  is  the 
light  of  eternity.  We  men  and  women  of  to-day  are 
standing  on  the  verge  of  a  future  whose  course  it  is 
impossible  to  foresee.  If  we  are  to  play  our  part 


2  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

through,  if  we  are  to  follow  our  duty  home,  we  need 
both  a  cool  head  and  a  warm  heart.  The  geologian 
deals  with  aeons  as  an  Oriental  monarch  deals  with 
his  people's  gold.  To  the  impassioned  reformer,  a 
year  is  an  age.  The  need  of  our  time  is  a  man- 
hood that  shall  gain  a  little  —  just  a  little — of  the 
geologian's  time-sense. 

I  cannot  hope  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  one-sided- 
ness.  Political  and  Economic  History  are  passed 
coolly  by.  The  vast  bulk  of  events  is  untouched.  I 
shall  seem  to  make  ideas  advance  to  the  sound  of  the 
trumpet,  like  the  things  that  happen  in  one  of  Dumas' 
novels.  May  be  —  which  is  worse  —  I  shall  appear  to 
be  writing  a  poor  fairy  story,  and  calling  it  philosophy 
of  history.  The  one-sidedness,  however,  is  conscious 
and  avowed.  It  can  deceive  no  one  but  myself,  and  I 
trust  that  even  I  shall  escape.  My  excuse  is  that  one- 
sidedness  is  worth  while.  In  the  hope  of  proving  it, 
thereby  defending  myself  against  that  righteous  horror 
of  easy  generalization  which  is  the  best  side  of  the 
intellectual  life  of  our  day,  I  venture  to  give  a  short 
syllabus  of  the  main  points  that  I  desire  to  make  good. 

(1)  In  the  Mediterranean  world,  for  the  first  time 
in  history,  the  individual   man  was  clearly  defined. 
He  was  called  "  soul."    The  individual  thus  christened 
was  a  generic  individual,  there  being  nothing  in  him 
that  could  not  become  universal.     In  this  definition 
was  stored  up  a  great  stock  of  potential  rights  for 
the  downmost  men.     It  was  to  give  rise  to  the  work- 
ing unit  of  modern  politics. 

(2)  With   the    Establishment   of   Christianity   the 
world  gained  a  dogmatic  conception  of  the  universe 
that  could  furnish  a  divining  power  strong  enough  to 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  3 

force  the  definition  down  through  the  lowest  stratum 
of  society,  as  it  lay  under  the  hand  of  theory.  At 
one  time  it  seemed  to  the  eye  of  flesh  that  the  religion 
of  Mithras  would  press  Christianity  hard  in  the  strug- 
gle for  the  spiritual  masterhood  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. That  religion  typified  all  the  weaknesses  of 
polytheism  in  its  relation  to  our  subject.  Through 
the  vast  debris  of  myth  and  ritual  the  principle  of 
individuality  could  not  penetrate. 

(3)  The  monotheistic  idea  of  God  unifies  and  coor- 
dinates the  spiritual  goods  of  the  race.  It  tolerates 
no  spaces  of  barren  silence  in  the  universe,  where  the 
imagination  of  the  reformer  cannot  live. 

.(4)  The  unity  of  God  involves  the  moral  unity  of, 
all  classes  of  men.  This  is  a  long  step  towards  the 
idea  of  equality. 

(5)  The  unity  of  God  entails  a  view  of  the  world 
which  puts  it  in  the  service  of  God.     In  lower  relig- 
ions the  Gods  are  in  the  service  of  men.     As  poly- 
theism clarifies  itself,  it  rises  into  dualism.     Still,  the 
world   and    history   are   not    plastic.       But    Biblical 
monotheism  succeeds  on  the  one  hand  in  making  God 
the  keeper  of  the  world's   ideal,  and   on  the  other, 
in  rendering  the  total  life  in  time  and  place  plastic 
under  His  hand.     Hence  the  idea  of  God  becomes 
both  the  ideal  and  the  task  of  mankind. 

(6)  Thus  the  potential  bulks  larger  than  the  actual. 
The  may-be  and  the  ought-to-be  gather  in  force  on  the 
frontiers  of  the  is — to  daunt  and  disturb  it,  perhaps 
some  day  to  break  in  upon  and  overcome  it.     That 
the  possible  thus  acquires  broad  margins  of  sugges- 
tion out  beyond  the  actual  is  a  fact  of  deep  signifi- 
cance in  the  history  of  the  social  ideal. 


4  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

(7)  The  idea  of  Personality  dawns  on  the  Western 
mind.     There's  a  good  in  each  man,  and  for  each  man 
better  than  his  best,  the  good  of  self-knowledge  and 
self-masterhood.       Personality    means     individuality 
creating  itself. 

(8)  This  involves  Freedom.      Fate  is  that  which 
cannot  be  assimilated.     To  the  reformer  Fate  is  the 
dead  matter  of  society  which  he  cannot  hope  to  vital- 
ize.     But   to  the   Christian  thought  of    Personality, 
that  is,  individuality  creating  itself  through  covenant 
with  God,  there  is  no  Fate,  save  lack  of  time ;  and 
the  belief  in  immortality,  the  historical  corollary  of 
the  belief  in  Personality,  makes  time  no  bar. 

.  (9)  The  climate  of  the  period  which  established 
Christianity  was  transcendence.  Transcendence,  for 
our  subject,  means  that  the  inner  life  of  man  is  too 
large  to  find  any  suitable  expression  in  social  or 
political  forms.  Such  a  period  of  transcendence  was 
necessary,  to  the  end  that  the  infinite  worth  of  the 
common  man  might  be  authenticated  and  registered. 

(10)  The  sense  of  sin  became  part  and  parcel  of 
common  consciousness.     It  is  a  leveller  and  equalizer 
—  the  mortal  foe  of  aristocracy. 

( 1 1 )  The  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  worked 
into  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  Occident,  so  that  it 
becomes  instinctive.     Some  day,  with  the  idea  of  God 
left  out  for  a  while,  it  shall  show  itself  as  the  belief 
in  human  perfectibility. 

(12)  And  so,  the  idea  of  Humanity  rises,  full  and 
clear  above   the   horizon.     It   amounts   to  this,  that 
wherever  you  find  man,  you  find  the  eternal  goods, 
and  therefore  the  highest  worth.     The  scale  of  mar- 
ket prices  for  the  common  man  is  forever  disarranged 


i  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  5 

by  the  discovery  in  him  of  something  that  is  above 
price. 

(13)  Along  with  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
the  clear  idea  of  Duty  enters  the  Western  mind.     It 
is  a  new  category  in  ethics.     It  involves,  ultimately,  a 
change  from  that  view  of  society  which  would  make 
it  exist  for  the  insurance  of  present  rights,  to  a  view 
of  it  as  also  existing  to  create    rights.     Just  as  the 
monotheistic  concept  of  God  puts  the  world  in  the 
service  of  the  human  ideal,  so  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  brings  before  the  mind  a  world  wholly  made 
up  of  material  plastic  for  Duty. 

(14)  So  far  as  theory  goes,  all  this  involves  a  revo- 
lution in  human  values.     It  matters  not  how  far  off 
the  translation  of  the  idea  into  institutions  may  be. 
Ideas  are  indestructible.     Force  stored  up  must  some 
day  break  forth.     With  History,  as  with  the  God  of 
History,  a  thousand  years  are  as  one  day. 

(15)  In  a  word,  the  establishment  of  Christianity 
in  Europe  creates  the  Reformer's  Conscience,  makes 

•the  world  seem  plastic  to  it,  and  gives  to  sociology 
that  elemental  man,  of  whom  Rousseau  preached, 
Burns  and  Wordsworth  sang,  and  for  whose  sake 
Kant  did  his  deepest  thinking.  To  set  this  man  free 
was  the  programme  of  the  Revolution. 

These  are  the  main  points  amongst  those  which  I 
desire  to  make  good.  If  as  generalizations  they  are 
only  half  true,  there  is  surely  enough  in  them  to 
justify  the  one-sidedness  that  is  necessary  to  empha- 
size them,  and  thereby  bring  out  the  continuity  of  the 
social  question  which  without  them  might  appear  to 
be  sprung  upon  our  time  by  economic  changes,  but 
which,  with  them,  is  seen  to  be  the  last  chapter 


6  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

hitherto  in  the  history  of  the  Occidental  view  of  the 
universe.  "  History  does  not  study  material  facts 
and  institutions  alone ;  its  true  object  of  study  is  the 
human  soul."  l  It  is  only  when  seen  in  this  light 
that  the  social  question  becomes  spiritually  inevitable. 
And  whatever  is  both  spiritual  and  inevitable  pays 
its  own  way  in  our  experience,  no  matter  how  heavy 
the  taxes. 

Of  course  the  later  Mediterranean  world  could  not 
have  a  social  question,  in  our  meaning  of  the  phrase. 
That  question  can  only  be  asked  when  a  free  State, 
more  or  less  clearly  conscious  of  itself,  exists,  and  is 
recognized  by  humanity  as  being  an  investment  for 
some  considerable  portion  of  its  spiritual  capital. 
But  the  central  feature  in  the  later  history  of  Antiq- 
uity was  the  death  of  the  State  as  a  spiritual  agent. 
It  lost  its  capacity  to  carry  the  unseen  goods,  and 
gave  place  to  a  Church  built  upon  a  non-terrestrial,  a 
transcendent  view  of  life.  Reason  and  conscience 
became  absentees  from  the  secular  order.  The 
causes  of  the  soul  were  all  appealed  to  the  world 
beyond.  There  was  a  change  of  venue  for  every 
fundamental  issue.  A  classic  example  is  Augustine's 
balancing  of  the  books  in  relation  to  the  capture  and 
sack  of  Rome.  Inasmuch  as  the  Goths  respected  the 
sanctity  of  the  churches,  he  concludes  that  the  gain 
was  greater  than  the  awful  loss  resulting  from  a  blow 
that  shook  the  ancient  world  to  its  centre.  In  such 
a  period  and  climate  the  questions  that  live  in  the 
heart  of  the  modern  State  could  not  be  asked  ;  or,  if 
some  genius  born  a  millennium  before  his  day  had 
asked  them,  a  dying  echo  would  have  been  the  only 
answer. 


I  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  7 

Seeing  that  the  .land  lies  this  way,  how  shall  we 
treat  the  subject  ?  Two  ways  open  before  us.  Desir- 
ing to  keep  close  to  the  question,  one  may  gather 
together  all  the  opinions  of  the  men  of  the  period 
touching  property,  usury,  slavery,  and  similar  matters ; 
and  then,  making  this  mass  of  opinions  the  basis, 
build  upon  it  an  inference  concerning  their  opinions 
of  the  social  structure,  in  case  they  do  not  express 
them  for  themselves.  But  this  would  be  doing  both 
too  little  and  too  much.  Too  little,  because  the 
emotional  centre  of  gravity  for  these  men  does  not 
lie  here ;  and  consequently  the  opinions  would  be 
detached  opinions  and  out  of  drawing  with  the  total 
thought  of  the  period.  Torn  from  their  context,  they 
would  be  in  effect  misquotations,  not  conveying  the 
whole  mind  of  their  authors.  It  would  also  be  doing 
too  much ;  for,  seeing  that  the  heart  of  the  period  is 
elsewhere,  these  opinions  would  sometimes  make  the 
period  speak  with  heavier  emphasis  than  was  in- 
tended, turning  the  Fathers  into  radical  socialists,  when 
as  a  matter  of  fact  they  could  not  have  understood 
such  men.  The  other  way  is  to  find  the  emotional 
centre  of  the  period,  even  if  we  have  to  give  the  main 
part  of  our  study  to  naked  theology  in  order  to  find  it. 
Having  found  it,  we  may  then  proceed  to  show  how 
the  opinions  of  the  time  upon  specific  questions  radi- 
ate from  it.  This  alone  is  historical  interpretation ; 
for  thus  alone  does  the  period  tell  its  story  in  its  own 
tongue. 

Moreover,  in  no  other  way  can  the  full  message  of 
the  period  reach  us.  Even  in  dealing  with  an  indi- 
vidual thinker,  we  rightly  care  more  for  his  methods 
of  thinking  than  for  his  thoughts.  Thoughts  come 


8  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

and  go,  often  leaving  no  trace,  while  the  thinking  is 
the  man.  Far  more  is  this  the  case  with  a  great 
period.  What  we  wish  to  know,  most  of  all,  is  not 
its  opinions,  but  its  concepts,  the  mother-ideas  that 
give  birth  to  opinions.  It  is  through  the  relations 
between  the  organizing  concepts,  the  central  impres- 
sions of  different  periods,  that  the  unity  of  history 
finds  us.  Through  them  we  also  gain  the  true 
measure  of  distances  in  the  field  of  the  human  spirit. 
So  far  as  multitudes  of  our  opinions  are  concerned, 
we  are  at  the  other  pole  from  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
But  as  regards  the  foundations  of  our  culture,  Plato 
and  Aristotle  are  nearer  to  us  than  yesterday's  news- 
paper. Isaiah  and  Lincoln  are  thousands  of  years 
apart  in  chronology.  In  logic  they  live  within  the 
same  day.  Finally,  in  no  other  way  can  we  learn  to 
appreciate  the  functions  of  this  period  in  the  history 
of  the  social  question.  In  terms  of  culture  its  work 
was  to  fuse  classical  and  Biblical  antiquity  ;  in  terms  of 
ecclesiology,  to  create  an  imperial  Church  which  should 
bridle  and  tame  the  pioneer  centuries  of  modernity. 
In  relation  to  our  subject,  those  two  works  were  one, 
for  their  sum-total  was  the  definition  of  the  soul. 

That  definition  made  a  deep  problem  inevitable. 
Schelling  has  said  that  the  greatness  of  a  system  of 
thought  is  better  tested  sometimes  by  its  power  to 
create  questions  than  by  its  power  to  answer  them. 
For  example,  Socrates  did  not  even  attempt  to  give 
the  world  a  view  of  the  universe.  Yet  he  forced 
the  Greek  reason  to  put  the  question  concerning 
man's  place  in  the  universe  in  a  new  way  ;  and  out  of 
that  new  question  came  the  systems  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  So  with  the  work  of  the  period  that 


i  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  9 

established  Christianity.  It  created  a  question.  No 
way  has  so  far  been  found  to  appropriate  dwelling- 
places  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  take  out  patents  for 
lordly  tracts  of  celestial  territory.  In  the  infinite 
fields  of  the  life  to  come,  as  the  devout  imagination 
surveys  them,  all  souls  find  ample  space  either  to 
wander  free  or  to  build  for  themselves  eternal  palaces. 
But  when  this  "soul"  comes  to  be  translated  into 
terms  of  the  terrestrial  order,  when  the  "rights  of 
man  "  stored  up  in  the  "  soul "  are  brought  out  into 
the  light  of  a  political  and  economic  day,  the  question 
touching  house-lots  and  farms  on  the  homestead  of 
our  race  which  we  call  the  earth,  takes  on  a  sharp 
point,  and  the  point  is  driven  home  to  the  heart  of 
modern  society. 

To  make  this  plain  is  the  objective  point  of  these 
lectures.  In  a  prefatory  way,  we  may  do  it  by  put- 
ting together  two  of  the  primary  maxims  in  ethics. 
The  first  is  the  utilitarian  rule  — "  Each  man  is  to 
count  for  one,  nobody  for  more  than  one."  The 
second  is  Kant's  —  "  Always  treat  humanity,  whether 
in  yourself  or  another,  as  a  person,  and  never  as  a 
thing."  The  first,  without  the  second,  is  a  form 
without  filling.  The  only  ground  for  counting  every- 
body as  one,  and  nobody  as  more  than  one,  is  the 
presence  in  all  men  of  a  something  or  other  which 
possesses  such  value  that  existing  social  forms  and 
economic  accumulations  cannot  bid  against  it.  This 
is  what  Kant  meant  by  treating  humanity  as  a  per- 
son, and  not  as  a  thing ;  because  a  thing  is  some- 
thing whose  value  finds  its  full  expression  in  a 
present  use;  while  personality  carries  within  it  a 
value  that  transcends  all  immediate  uses,  and  so  has 


10  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  power  to  spur  on  such  uses  to  self-enlargement, 
and  the  right  to  challenge  existing  social  forms  to 
expand  and  deepen,  or  else  perish.  Unless,  now, 
there  is  this  transcendent  quality  in  humanity  as  such, 
the  rule  "  Count  every  man  as  one  and  nobody  as 
more  than  one  "  has  no  guarantee  in  the  ground  of 
things,  no  permanent  safeguard  in  the  constitution 
of  the  universe,  and  consequently  it  cannot  stand  up 
against  the  vast  natural  differences  of  equipment  and 
function.  Therefore  Kant's  rule  is  the  indispensable 
underpinning  of  the  utilitarian  rule. 

To  express  it  in  another  way,  the  social  question 
is  a  moral  question ;  first,  because  its  ultimate  root  is 
a  choice  between  divergent  ideals  of  the  State,  that 
is,  between  different  ways  of  viewing  and  organizing 
the  total  human  life  in  time  and  space ;  and  secondly, 
because,  as  a  consequence,  the  question  concerning 
the  worth  of  the  labor  turns  into  a  question  concern- 
ing the  worth  of  the  laborer.  In  other  words,  the 
social  problem,  when  run  to  the  earth,  reads  as  fol- 
lows :  Is  it  possible  to  individualize  the  downmost 
man  ?  to  make  him  really  count  as  one  ? 

We  are  in  the  current  of  a  violent  reaction  against 
the  eighteenth  century.  Its  theory  of  a  Social  Con- 
tract is  set  down  by  all  parties  as  a  socialogic  myth. 
Its  State  of  Nature  is  considered  a  barbarian's  para- 
dise. The  Robinsonade  has  become  an  extinct  type 
of  literature  —  there  must  be  a  sweetheart  on  the 
other  end  of  the  island.  "  Organic  "  is  the  contem- 
porary substitute  for  "  Orthodoxy."  Not  to  be  or- 
ganic means  to  be  excommunicated  by  the  men  who 
think.  To  be  an  eighteenth  century  man  is  to  have 
been  dug  up  as  a  fossil  and  to  have  the  primeval  clay 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  i  I 

still  clinging  to  one's  bones.  All  this  is  well,  after 
its  kind.  But  a  danger  attends  it.  In  pouring  out 
the  bathing-water  of  individualism  we  may  possibly 
spill  out  the  baby,  —  Individuality.  The  desire  and 
need  of  our  time  is  not  less  individuality,  but  an 
individuality  that  is  more  vital  and  deep,  because 
more  free  from  the  tyranny  of  fate  in  the  form  of 
inherited  standards.  What  is  at  stake  in  our  social 
agitation  is  a  vast  extension  of  the  area  over  which 
the  principle  of  individuality  operates.  Just  as  science 
found  a  way  through  the  barred  doors  of  Laura 
Bridgman's  senses,  and  gave  to  the  woman,  impris- 
oned within,  the  rightful  privilege  of  expression,  so 
are  the  missionary  forces  of  society  striving  to  create 
individuals  in  places  where  now  there  is  a  mere  gross 
lump  of  humanity.  The  abstract  doctrine  of  equality 
has  value  only  as  a  revolutionary  force.  But  the 
concrete  doctrine  is  a  permanent  element  in  the  so- 
cial constitution.  It  means  equality  in  the  right  to 
be  individual.  Hence  it  draws  after  it  the  moral 
necessity  of  undoing  political  laws  which  make  the 
individuality  of  some  men  a  bar  to  the  individuality 
of  many  men,  and  of  removing  certain  economic 
conditions  which  make  it  impossible  for  masses  of 
mankind  to  be  individual  at  all. 

If  the  democratic  view  of  things  is  not  lost  in  the 
woods,  the  individualization  of  the  men  who  are  the 
mudsills  of  society  is  a  necessity.  It  is  the  goal 
of  universal  history,  unless  history  is  to  end  with  a 
march  into  the  desert.  But  the  necessity  of  individ- 
ualizing these  men  would  never  have  been  seen,  if 
the  establishment  of  Christianity  had  not  issued  in 
the  clear  definition  of  the  "  soul."  That  definition 


12  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

takes  note  only  of  the  staple  of  humanity,  of  what 
is  or  must  become  common  stock  with  all  men. 
The  "  soul "  carries  within  it  a  value  above  all  ter- 
restrial values.  It  conceals  within  itself  a  universal 
individual.  He  is  defined,  indeed,  in  terms  of  the 
other  world.  But  he  is  defined,  and  so  becomes 
footloose.  Hereby  the  task  of  modern  history  is 
prescribed. 

Now  individualization  means  moralization.  A  man 
is  moralized  when  he  is  taken  to  heart  by  the  highest 
conscience  to  be  found,  when  he  is  brought  within  the 
pale  of  the  highest  known  ideal.  For  example,  in  the 
shopping  season  just  before  Christmas,  the  days  that 
try  the  souls  of  women,  the  girl  behind  the  counter  is 
moralized  or  not,  according  as  the  shoppers  do  or  do 
not  treat  her  as  they  would  treat  their  peers,  with 
their  very  best  manners.  In  the  history  of  morals 
there  is  steady  change.  Not  only  do  individual  du- 
ties come  and  go,  but  ideals  themselves  alter.  Yet 
it  always  holds  good  concerning  any  given  man  at 
any  given  time  or  place,  that  he  is  moralized  only 
when  recognized  as  kith  and  kin  by  the  highest 
working  ideal  above  the  horizon.  Thus  in  Aristotle 
the  free  citizen  is  moralized,  having  a  full  share  in 
the  spiritual  estate  of  his  fatherland.  The  slave  is 
not  moralized,  being  "an  animated  tool."  Athens, 
—  the  combined  Church  and  State  —  can  find  and 
recognize  herself  in  the  citizen,  since  he  is  made 
after  her  likeness,  counts  as  an  individual,  and  stands 
within  the  pale  of  the  spirit.  The  slave,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  like  the  marble  chips  and  dust  which  the 
sculptor  sweeps  away  from  the  foot  of  his  statue, 
lying  outside  the  limits  of  expression.  A  man  then 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  13 

is  moralized  when  he  becomes  a  carrier  for  the  spirit- 
ual goods,  a  representative  of  the  highest  conscious 
life.  And  the  root  of  the  social  question  is  the 
problem  —  How  shall  the  downmost  man  bulk  large 
enough  before  the  terrestrial  reason  and  conscience 
to  force  them  to  take  cognizance  of  him  ? 

It  should  not  be  hard  to  see  the  bearing  of  the  first 
five  hundred  years  of  our  era  upon  our  great  debate. 
The  utilitarian's  "Each  shall  count  for  one,"  without 
the  Kantian  "  Always  treat  humanity  as  a  person," 
is  a  form  without  a  filling.  But  the  Kantian  maxim 
draws  its  sap  and  vitalizing  juices  from  that  generic 
individual,  the  "soul,"  which  the  first  five  centuries 
of  our  era  conceived  and  defined.  It  was  in  this 
period  that  ethical  theory  and  religious  experience 
stored  up  values  in  the  common  man  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  he  must  needs  become  a  person,  —  an  end 
in  himself,  and  cease  to  be  a  thing,  —  a  means  to  the 
development  of  personality  in  other  men.  And  so 
this  period  became  the  ethical  climax  of  antiquity 
and  the  pioneer  of  modernity. 

It  should  also  be  easy  to  see  how  the  theology,  that 
constitutes  the  intellectual  staple  of  those  early  cen- 
turies, bears  upon  the  social  question.  Since  the  task 
of  universal  history  is  the  individualization  of  the 
man  at  the  bottom  and  the  moralization  of  his  func- 
tions, and  since,  without  this,  history  sinks  to  the 
level  of  a  physical  process,  this  or  nothing  must  be 
set  down  as  the  desire  of  humanity.  Lewes  once 
said  that  a  fine  English  lawn  was  the  embodied  de- 
sire of  many  generations.  Now  the  idea  of  God,  if 
it  be  nothing  more,  is  the  embodied  and  transfigured 
desire  of  our  race.  Into  it,  as  into  a  supreme  good, 


14  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  sanctified  wishes  of  men  have  poured  themselves. 
By  speculation  upon  it,  the  thoughts  of  man  have  cen- 
tralized and  clarified  themselves.  Let  it  be  granted, 
for  the  sake  of  passing  argument,  that  the  idea  of 
God  does  not  pay  a  single  one  of  our  debts  to  reason 
and  conscience,  but  merely  refunds  all  our  debts ; 
still,  we  have  in  it  the  very  best  register  of  what  has 
been  deep  in  the  heart  of  humanity.  Therefore  it  is 
a  fair  inference  that  the  history  of  the  social  question 
is  in  organic  connection  with  the  history  of  the  idea 
which  has  recorded  the  noblest  ventures  of  the  heart 
and  registered  its  most  enduring  gains. 

Feuerbach's  famous  thesis  was  that  the  Gods  were 
just  the  dreams  of  men  projected  into  an  imagined 
being  outside  the  dreamers.  And  according  to  him 
the  absorption  of  all  the  Gods  into  the  one  God  does 
nothing  but  deepen  and  intensify  the  dream.  God 
is  still  made  in  the  image  of  human  need  and  aspira- 
tion. Suppose  this  to  be  true.  Suppose  Christian 
Theology  to  be  merely  a  chapter  in  comparative  my- 
thology. Its  vast  importance  to  our  subject  is  not 
thereby  lessened  one  whit.  Nobody  doubts  that  an 
insight  of  the  Greek  myths  is  essential  to  the  under- 
standing of  Greek  art.  Why,  then,  should  it  be 
doubted  that  an  insight  of  Christian  theology,  as  it 
was  worked  out  during  the  period  when  the  founda- 
tions of  our  culture  were  being  laid,  is  essential  to 
the  history  of  labor  ?  The  claims  of  the  laborer 
upon  a  new  estate  in  society  are  involved  in  that 
search  for  the  "soul "  or  pith  of  man  which  was  the 
main  spiritual  labor  of  those  five  centuries  and  the 
ten  that  followed  them.  But  the  "  soul "  cannot  be 
separated  from  God.  God  is  the  seat  of  unity,  the 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  15 

domicile  of  worth,  outside  the  world.  And  the  "  soul " 
is  the  only  seat  of  unity,  the  one  spring  and  source 
of  worth,  inside  the  world.  The  new  definition  of 
the  individual  is  historically  inseparable  from  the 
conception  of  God. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  seriously  realize  the  affinity  be- 
tween the  social  feeling  and  the  religious  feeling.  I 
think  it  is  fast  becoming  a  matter  of  common  remark 
that  the  deeper  socialism  of  England  and  America  is 
looking  towards,  if  it  has  not  already  entered  into,  a 
religious  phase.  This  is  not  a  haphazard  or  passing 
attitude.  The  social  and  the  religious  consciousness 
are  akin.  If  we  strip  religion  of  those  features  that 
make  it  a  form  of  insurance,  and  then  consider  not 
its  speculative  explanations,  but  its  emotional  forms, 
it  yields  two  main  elements  for  our  examination : 
first,  a  sense  of  the  whole  of  things ;  and  secondly, 
a  feeling  of  admiration.  Under  the  first  head,  all 
religions  are  attempts  to  organize  the  impressions  of 
men  upon  the  basis  of  some  conception  of  the  total 
life.  Whatever  the  form  that  the  religion  and  its 
theology  assume,  it  gains  its  power  from  its  ability  to 
view  the  universe  as  a  whole  and  to  show  the  indi- 
vidual his  place  and  meaning  in  it.  In  the  debate 
now  going  on,  called  "  comparative  religions,"  one 
religion  shall  overcome  and  silence  the  others  in  pro- 
portion as  it  succeeds  in  proving  that  it  takes  more 
careful  account  of  the  whole  of  man's  life  than  the 
other  religions  do,  and  puts  it  in  more  sane  and  per- 
manent relations  with  the  base  of  all  being  called 
God.  But  socialism  for  its  part  has  no  other  aim 
than  to  teach  the  individual  that  he  cannot  live  unto 
himself;  and  that  not  the  bare  individual,  but  the 


l6  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

social  individual  is  the  necessary  unit  of  feeling. 
It  teaches  him  that  he  can  live  only  by  a  deep- 
ening sense  of  the  whole.  This  sense  of  the 
whole  is  indefinite  and  elastic.  Let  the  bare  indi- 
vidual once  acquire  it,  and  there's  no  such  thing 
as  stopping  him  until  he  brings  up  in  some  form 
of  religion. 

Under  the  second  head,  all  religions  are  attempts 
to  supply  men  with  objects  of  permanent  reverence. 
We  live  by  admiration.  The  feeling  is  of  infinite 
range.  It  goes  from  strength  to  strength  until  it 
bows  down  before  the  being  and  beauty  of  God. 
But  always  and  everywhere  any  object  is  either  tem- 
porarily or  permanently  a  religious  object  that  calls 
out  and  holds  the  deepest  reverence  of  which  human- 
ity at  the  time  is  capable.  The  worship  of  ancestors, 
the  worship  of  the  saints,  the  religiousness  of  patriot- 
ism, the  subtle  connections  between  chivalry  and  the 
worship  of  Mary,  are  enough  to  remind  us  that  when 
the  individual  is  once  borne  out  of  the  small  but  snug 
harbor  of  sense  and  self-interest  upon  the  tide  of 
admiration,  he  can  make  no  port  until  he  sees  the 
object  of  his  admiration  indentified  or  associated  with 
God.  Now  the  social  movement  draws  all  its  power 
from  reverence  for  humanity.  If  it  were  a  merely 
economic  movement,  a  war  between  the  party  of  the 
lean  and  the  party  of  the  fat,  it  would  not  go  far  on 
the  highway  of  history.  Even  if  it  were  inspired  by 
pity,  it  would  sooner  or  later  find  its  breath  coming 
short  and  be  forced  to  take  refuge  in  the  monastery. 
Its  one  and  sole  permanent  spring  is  reverence. 
Hence  it  has  religion  implicit  in  itself,  seeing  that 
humanity  cannot  be  permanently  reverenced,  through 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  17 

good  report  and  evil  report,  unless  its  roots  go  down 
to  a  purpose  deeper  than  the  dust. 

When  the  two  elements  —  the  sense  of  the  whole 
and  admiration  —  are  put  together,  it  becomes  clear 
on  the  one  side  that  the  social  feeling  is  essentially 
religious ;  and,  on  the  other  side,  that  the  religious 
feeling  is  essentially  social.  If  now  we  make  connec- 
tion with  the  conclusion  that  universal  history  sinks 
to  a  physical  process  unless  the  individualization  and 
moralization  of  the  downmost  man  be  set  as  its  goal, 
we  shall  know  what  it  is  that  we  must  require  of  re- 
ligion, in  order  that  the  social  question  may  be  clearly 
asked  and  patiently  and  courageously  dealt  with. 
The  ethical  root  of  the  problem  is  the  necessity  of 
counting  the  commonest  man  as  one.  The  area  of 
individuality  must  become  coterminous  with  the  area 
of  society.  On  the  one  hand,  society  must  judge 
itself  by  its  capacity  to  create  men.  The  reformer, 
working  in  the  slums,  seeking  to  make  citizens  out  of 
things,  is  the  type  of  man  desired  by  a  State  that  is 
truly  democratic ;  that  is,  the  State  that  is  built 
on  belief  in  the  equal  right  of  every  one  to  be  an 
individual.  On  the  other  hand,  the  individual  must 
judge  himself  by  his  capacity  to  enter  more  and  more 
deeply  into  an  ever-widening  number  of  relationships. 
The  democratic  gentleman  is  he  who  can  find  his 
peer  in  the  greatest  number  of  men  of  all  sorts  and 
conditions.  Thus  a  maximum  of  energy  making  for 
an  enlargement  of  the  area  of  individuality  is  the 
heart  of  the  State,  while  a  maximum  of  relationships 
with  every  kind  of  people  is  the  substance  of  the  true 
individual.  So  then  we  require  of  a  religion  that 
shall  either  create  a  fund  of  resources  for  the  demo- 


1 8  GENESIS  'OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

cratic  view  of  society  or  provide  a  place  of  invest- 
ment for  its  gains,  that  it  shall  reveal  to  us  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuality  as  set  deep  in  the  being  of  God. 
If  the  deepest  desire  of  humanity  is  that  every  man 
become  an  individual,  then  the  idea  of  God,  which 
either  creates  or  registers  the  desires  of  men,  must 
give  an  eternal  foothold  for  that  desire. 

While,  however,  the  social  feeling,  to  be  permanent, 
must  make  alliance  with  religion,  it  need  not  be  con- 
sciously religion  all  the  time  ;  indeed,  it  may  be  uncon- 
scious of  the  connection  for  a  considerable  part  of  the 
time.  Art  and  literature,  science  and  law,  may  spend 
their  whole  store  of  attention  upon  the  specific  satis- 
faction of  specific  present  needs,  and  their  products 
can  be  called  religion  only  by  disregarding  every  rule 
of  careful  classification.  Yet  art  and  literature,  science 
and  law,  are  supremely  concerned  with  the  principle 
of  individuality.  With  all  of  them  the  central  article 
of  faith  is  that  the  general  and  the  particular  dwell 
not  apart,  but  together.  Noble  art  gives  us  men  and 
women  who  are  perfectly  definite  and  yet  are  univer- 
sal. The  beautiful  woman  of  high  art  is  an  individ- 
ual and  at  the  same  time  a  type,  while  an  aggregation 
of  poor  portraits  yields  to  us  not  a  single  individual 
and  not  one  type.  Classic  literature  is  literature  that 
has  the  right  of  translation  into  all  languages,  the 
freedom  of  all  times  and  places,  while  it  is  absolutely 
true  to  the  time  and  place  of  its  birth.  A  system  of 
law  is  good  just  in  proportion  as  it  conjoins  the  need 
of  the  State  and  the  needs  of  the  constantly  chang- 
ing citizens.  Science  has  no  function  except  to  find 
the  unities  of  Nature  in  the  lowest  monad.  All 
forms,  then,  of  high  human  endeavor  are  vitally  inter- 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  19 

ested  in  the  principle  of  individuality.  Their  implicit 
creed  is  that  the  universal  and  the  individual  are 
inseparable,  that  the  one  is  no  more  and  no  less  deep 
than  the  other. 

If  then  religion  —  such  as  the  social  problem 
requires  it  to  be  —  meets  the  highest  forms  of 
human  endeavor  upon  this  common  ground  of  inter- 
est in  the  principle  of  individuality,  we  know  what 
we  are  to  look  for  as  we  enter  on  the  study  of  our 
period. 

This  also  determines  for  us  our  first  step.  We 
must  make  the  primitive  tribal  view  of  deity  and 
humanity  the  starting-point.  This  may  seem  at  first 
sight  like  bringing  a  simple  thing  from  a  far  country 
in  order  to  give  it  a  fictitious  value.  Granted  that  a 
matter  so  remote  from  practical  latter-day  issues  as 
Nicene  Theology  is  yet  within  view  of  the  most  prac- 
tical question  we  know,  why  go  so  far  afield  as  pre- 
historic history  ?  Is  it  not  like  beginning  with  the 
Flood  in  order  to  understand  the  work  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Board  of  Health  in  relation  to  the  water- 
supply  ?  But  no  other  beginning  can  give  us  our 
true  bearings.  The  Tribe  lies  back  of  all  history. 
The  universal  primitive  religion  was  one  form  or 
another  of  the  tribal  religion.  Upon  the  tribal  basis 
the  first  states  were  built.  The  Tribe  was  the  ground 
both  of  the  caste  system  of  India  and  the  patriarchal 
system  of  China.  It  outcrops  everywhere  in  Egypt. 
The  political  system  of  Greek  and  Rome  rose  upon 
it.  The  tribal  view  of  the  relation  between  gods  and 
men,  and  between  man  and  his  world,  is  the  first 
attempt  at  a  view  of  the  universe.  Out  of  it  Poly- 
theism and  Pantheism  grew.  And  against  it,  as 


2O  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

a  background,  the  religion  of  Israel  should  be  set,  if 
its  development  is  to  become  intelligible.  Short  of 
the  Tribe,  therefore,  we  cannot  stop,  if  we  would 
have  a  satisfactory  beginning  for  our  study  of  the 
growth  of  the  Mediterranean  world  into  a  definition 
of  the  generic  individual.  On  the  one  side,  the  end 
of  the  religious  movement  of  humanity  is  to  find  a 
ground  for  the  principle  of  individuality  that  shall  be 
as  deep  as  the  bottom  of  all  being.  On  the  other  side, 
the  end  of  the  social  movement  of  humanity  is  to 
extend  the  area  of  the  common  good,  i.e.  individuality, 
until  the  right  to  be  individual  and  the  opportunities 
for  being  individual  shall  lie  at  the  door  of  the  lowest 
human  life.  To  reach  this  end,  the  tribal  organiza- 
tion must  be  completely  outgrown,  while  at  the  same 
time  it  is  true  that  without  the  Tribe  history  could  not 
have  begun. 

The  Tribe  was  a  mass  of  humanity,  not  an  organic 
union  of  developed  individuals.  The  individual  as 
such  did  not  exist  outside  the  tribe.  The  non- 
tribesman  was  an  enemy  —  to  be  annihilated,  if 
possible,  anyway  not  to  be  realized.  There  is  no 
true  thoroughfare  between  one  tribe  and  another,  and 
no  vital  relationship  between  their  members.  Neither 
was  there  any  individual,  as  such,  inside  the  Tribe. 
The  old  people  and  the  sickly  had  no  rights.  Infants 
brought  into  the  world  no  value  of  their  own ;  they 
must  be  formally  recognized  by  the  head  of  the  tribal 
family  before  they  have  a  valid  claim  upon  exis- 
tence. The  individual  is  merely  part  of  a  lump  of 
humanity. 

The  Tribe  is  also  the  unit  of  experience.  An  illus- 
tration of  this  is  found  in  the  invasion  of  the  Roman 


I  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  21 

Empire  by  Christianity.  One  reason  why  the  new 
religion  made  such  rapid  headway  in  the  cities  and 
equally  slow  headway  in  the  country  districts,  —  so 
that  non-Christians  came  to  be  called  "  Pagans "  or 
"  Back-Country-folk,"  —  was  that  the  tribal  family 
organization  held  its  ground  in  the  outlying  districts. 
No  individuals  lived  there,  the  tribal  family  being 
the  religious  unit.  But  in  the  cities  the  tribal  organi- 
zation had  been  broken  up.  Individuals  lived  there, 
and  it  was  upon  individuals  that  Christianity  asserted 
its  claim.2  Moreover,  the  Tribe  or  the  tribal  family 
was  the  unit  of  moral  responsibility.  Hence  the 
feeling  about  the  guilt  in  the  Greek  Drama,  and 
the  early  laws  concerning  penalties  for  the  wrong- 
doing of  anybody.  His  tribe  was  responsible  for  him. 
Corporations  cannot  die.  The  primitive  man  be- 
longed to  an  undying  corporation,  and  did  not  breathe 
outside  it.  From  this  same  quarter  came  the  fact 
that  the  Tribe  was  the  unit  of  legislation.  The  result 
is  seen  in  the  governmental  methods  of  early  empires. 
The  Assyrian,  the  Persian,  even  the  Greek  empire, 
taxed,  but  did  not  legislate.  The  tribal  head,  the 
local  king,  with  his  constitutional  assistants,  did  the 
law-making  for  the  most  part.  His  function  towards 
the  empire  was  discharged  when  he  paid  the  imperial 
levy.  The  Roman  Empire  was  the  first  to  legislate 
as  well  as  tax,  the  first  to  break  through  the  tribal 
organization  and  recognize  the  men  within  it  as 
individual  citizens.3 

Again,  the  ground  of  membership  in  the  Tribe  had 
nothing  to  do  with  vicinity.  The  tie  that  bound  men 
together  was  not  territorial,  but  the  tie  of  kinship 
and  its  religion.  This  non-territorial  basis  of  the  first 


22  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

society  keeps  company  with  the  non-existence  of 
individuals  in  it  or  for  it.  The  true  State,  which  does 
not  recognize  castes  or  undying  corporations,  but 
knows  only  individuals,  is  necessarily  built  on  the 
territorial  basis  of  citizenship.  Finally,  the  tribal 
idea  of  God  gives  no  permanent  foothold  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuality.  The  Tribe  and  its  God  are  of 
one  blood  and  one  bone  ;  they  are  made  of  practically 
the  same  stuff.  The  altar  is  the  table  where  they  eat 
together.  The  tribesman  differs  from  his  God  only 
in  a  quantitative  way.  Ares  and  Diomed  are  not 
essentially  unlike,  but  the  former  has  a  far  heavier 
spear  and  his  battle-roar  is  far  more  than  the  head  of 
Diomed  can  hold.  The  ultimate  of  thought  is  a 
vague  notion  of  a  substance  of  some  sort,  upon  whose 
surface  the  differences  that  go  to  make  up  individual- 
ities are  placed,  while  difference  as  such  has  no  root 
in  the  substance  itself.  Now  this  is  equivalent  to 
saying  that  the  principle  of  individuality  does  not  take 
hold  on  the  ultimate  thought  and  has  no  share  in  it. 
The  right  of  individuality  is  bound  up  with  the  reality 
and  the  sincerity  of  difference.  But  in  the  tribal  the- 
ology difference  has  no  rights.  Down  beneath  the 
surface  of  difference  are  the  abiding  things,  and  their 
sole  law  is  identity. 

It  was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  no  concep- 
tion of  progress.  Indeed,  such  a  conception  would 
have  been  out  of  place,  and  even  a  deadly  danger. 
Bagehot  rightly  says,  "  Law,  rigid,  definite,  concise 
law,  is  the  primary  want  of  early  mankind.''*  The 
object  is  to  create  a  cake  of  custom,  and  thereby 
establish  that  "  hereditary  drill/'  which  was  essential 
to  the  existence  of  a  great  fighting  machine.5  For 


I  GENESIS  OF. THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  23 

that  was  just  what  the  Tribe  amounted  to ;  it  was 
the  first  fighting-machine  invented  by  man.  And  by 
means  of  it  our  race  won  its  first  great  victories  over 
Nature,  and  over  the  wild  beasts  that  once  on  a  time 
were  a  close  second  to  us  in  the  race  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  earth. 

Moreover,  within  such  a  society  there  could  be  no 
distinctive  custom  and  law.  That  distinction  appears 
only  when  the  State  is  fairly  in  the  field.  It  grows 
out  of  the  classification  of  some  things  as  necessary, 
of  others  as  indifferent.  But  the  tribal  drill,  aiming 
at  an  obedience  so  absolute  that  the  individual  would 
annihilate  himself  to  clear  a  path  for  the  Tribe,  could 
not  with  safety  permit  any  distinction  to  be  drawn 
between  the  essential  and  the  non-essential  All  men 
must  be  absolutely  alike  in  their  goings  on.  There 
is  no  law  save  custom.  All  custom  is  sacred.  It 
lies  in  the  lap  of  the  Gods,  whose  sole  function  is  to 
guarantee  it. 

As  a  direct  consequence,  the  Present  had  no  rights 
in  relation  to  the  Past.  The  Past  was  the  seat  of 
all  authority.  Religion,  although  it  could  never  have 
been  exhausted  in  ancestor-worship,  was  very  largely 
that ;  and  even  its  other  elements  were  apt  to  be 
cast  in  the  mould  of  ancestor-worship  Thus  religion 
and  canonic  custom  conspired  to  strip  the  Present 
of  all  authority.  And  in  the  absence  of  any  distinc- 
tion between  law  divine  and  law  human,  the  idea  of 
change  could  nowhere  find  entry.  Immutability  was 
the  ideal.  Only  the  old  could  be  true.  The  new  was 
necessarily  false. 

Looking  down  the  stream  of  history  from  the  Tribe, 
we  can  easily  see  that,  if  there  is  ever  to  be  a  social 


24  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL. CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

question,  the  individual  must  be  set  free  from  the 
overmastering  grip  of  the  tribal  society,  and  that  the 
Present  must  be  emancipated  from  the  tyrannous 
pressure  of  the  Past.  These  two  ventures  have  their 
fortunes  afloat  on  the  same  ship.  The  connection 
between  them  is  made  plain  by  the  relation  between 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries.  In  the  for- 
mer the  individual  stood  forth  in  naked  sovereignty 
over  thought.  And  the  same  period  undertook  to 
sweep  the  Past  out  of  doors  as  so  much  dust  and 
litter.  Our  own  century,  on  the  contrary,  seeking 
to  restore  the  individual  to  his  place  in  society,  finds 
at  the  same  time  that  it  has  the  problem  of  authority 
on  its  hands.  When  the  relation  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  organism  is  taken  seriously,  the  rela- 
tion between  the  Present  and  the  Past  must  also  be 
taken  seriously.  The  connection  between  the  libera- 
tion of  the  individual  and  the  emancipation  of  the 
Present  may  thus  be  experimentally  verified.  It  may 
also  be  seen  in  philosophy.  It  is  found  in  the  neces- 
sity and  sanctity  of  difference.  If  the  right  to  differ 
be  conceded  in  one  place,  it  commands  the  whole  line. 
The  right  of  one  individual  to  differ  from  another 
individual  and  to  seek  within  himself  —  and  in  no 
external  sanctuary  —  the  authority  for  the  right,  can- 
not exist  apart  from  the  right  of  the  Present  to  differ 
from  the  Past,  without  going  outside  itself  to  be 
authenticated. 

So  the  liberation  of  the  individual  and  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  Present  go  on  together.  And  both  are 
indispensable,  if  history  is  to  reach  a  social  question. 
Otherwise  the  downmost  man  can  never  bulk  large 
enough  to  ferce  the  highest  working  ideals  to  seek 


I  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  25 

intimate  acquaintance  with  him.  If  the  Past  con- 
tinues to  be  all  in  all,  if  that  which  has  been  is  alone 
sacred,  that  is,  the  measure  of  what  ought  to  be,  then 
a  man  may  rise  once  in  a  while  from  the  lowest  class  ; 
but  only  to  leave  it  behind  him,  not  to  leaven  it  with 
his  success.  The  fortune  of  the  lowest  class  depends 
upon  society's  success  in  capitalizing  the  Future. 
The  to-be  must  become  at  least  as  sacred  as  the  has- 
been.  We  find  one  proof  of  this  in  the  eighteenth 
century's  conception  of  Nature.  It  was  rather  the 
entrenchment  of  an  ideal  than  an  inventory  of  facts. 
Nature  was  a  storehouse  of  possibilities  for  the  dis- 
inherited classes.  It  was  the  necessary  ethical  myth 
of  the  democratic  dreamer,  disguised  as  science.  It 
was  the  high  ground  of  vantage  from  which  the 
oicgJit-to-be  assaulted  the  is, 

Another  proof  of  a  lighter  sort  is  the  widespread 
prevalence  of  humor  among  Americans.  The  reason 
for  it  is  that  we  deal  in  the  future  more  than  any 
other  people.  Humor  of  a  high  sort  grows  only  in 
the  soil  of  love  and  sympathy.  Humor  of  any  sort 
is  impossible  outside  the  land  of  hope.  Where  the 
is  measures  the  to-be,  some  form  of  rigid  aristocracy 
must  appear.  And  to  such  an  aristocracy  satire,  not 
humor,  belongs.  Humor  cannot  prevail  over  wide 
areas  of  feeling  unless  the  potential  is  steadily  con- 
ceived as  vastly  larger  than  the  actual.  A  true  De- 
mocracy must  live  a  great  deal  in  the  future.  From 
that  life  it  draws  its  most  notable  characteristics. 

This,  then,  is  our  conclusion.  In  order  that  a  career 
may  be  opened  to  the  man  at  the  bottom,  history  must 
define  the  individual  in  terms  of  what  is  generic  and 
universal.  History  must  also  so  conceive  the  rela- 


26  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE       CHAP.  I 

tion  of  the  Present  to  the  Past  that  change  shall 
become  as  sacred  as  the  inherited  constitution  of 
society.  It  must  come  to  pass  that  a  given  society, 
if  it  is  to  retain  the  right  to  exist,  must  be  continually 
extending  the  experience  of  its  best  things  to  men 
who  were  at  one  time  outside  the  pale  of  the  best. 
But  this  second  step,  in  reality,  depends  upon  the 
first.  The  principle  of  individuality,  once  established, 
draws  after  it  the  principle  of  progress.  And  so 
everything  hinges  on  the  definition  of  the  individual. 


II 

POLYBIUS  says  that  in  the  ages  before  the  Roman 
Empire  the  deeds  of  the  oecumenical  world — by  which 
he  means  the  world  that  deserved  the  philosopher's 
attention  —  were  sporadic  and  isolated ;  but  that 
under  the  Empire  history  acquired  a  single  body.6 
The  early  apologetes  for  Christianity  used  some- 
thing like  the  same  thought  as  an  argument,  when 
they  laid  emphasis  upon  the  fact  that  the  one  Christ, 
bearing  final  news  concerning  the  one  God,  was  con- 
temporary with  the  founding  of  the  one  Empire.7 
In  the  same  vein,  Christian  preachers  have  taken  the 
three  languages  in  which  the  words  on  the  cross  were 
written  as  typical  of  the  threefoldness  of  the  prepara- 
tion for  Christ's  work.  Greek,  Roman,  and  Jew  built 
the  highway  over  which  Christianity  marched  to  con- 
quest. The  truth  of  this  is  a  commonplace.  Real 
classification,  however,  reduces  the  three  to  two  — 
the  Greek  and  Roman  on  the  one  side,  and  Israel 
on  the  other.  The  twofoldness  of  our  modern  cult- 
ure has  become  more  and  more  apparent  since  the 
Renaissance.  Greek  and  Roman  have  drawn  apart 
from  the  Semite,  and  stand  together  against  him. 
But  my  aim  in  this  and  the  two  following  chapters  is 

27 


28  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

to  show  that,  as  regards  the  social  question,  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  would  have  been  helpless  to  level  the 
road  for  it,  unless  the  Semite  had  come  to  their  aid, 
organizing  and  insuring  their  gains  by  means  of  his 
idea  of  God.  I  am  not  arguing  for  Christianity,  but 
stating  a  fact  which  lies  plain  and  broad  upon  the 
page  of  history.  Without  the  religion  that  issued 
from  Palestine,  our  great  problem  could  not  have 
been  conceived  nor  the  question  asked.  Whether 
without  it  we  can  hope  for  anything  like  an  answer, 
is  a  point  that  does  not  here  concern  me. 

Both  at  Athens  and  at  Rome  the  great  step  was 
taken  from  sacred  law,  or  custom  canonized  and 
made  immutable  by  the  guarantee  of  the  Gods,  to 
rational  law,  a  kind  of  law  made  by  men  and  adapt- 
ing itself  to  the  changing  necessities  of  men.  This 
was,  in  principle,  the  deliverance  of  the  Present  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  Past,  and  consequently,  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  principle  of  progress.  A  man-made 
law,  in  distinction  from  a  God-made  law  as  primitive 
man  conceived  it,  could  find  no  reason  for  being, 
save  in  the  answer  it  gave  to  practical  human  needs. 
It  could  not  take  asylum  in  mystery  or  infallible 
authority.  It  must  approve  itself  to  sense  and  use, 
or  surrender  its  place  to  a  different  law.  Hence  this 
movement  away  from  sacred  law  was  the  potential 
liberation  of  the  common  man  from  the  oppressive 
weight  of  existing  institutions.  Sacred  law  was  the 
inherited  property  of  the  sacred  tribes,  and  therefore 
they  jealously  guarded  it  from  publication.  It  had 
the  narrowness  of  the  primitive  tribal  religion,  into 
which  no  man,  who  was  not  of  the  tribal  blood,  might 
enter  without  profanation.  But  man-made  law  was 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  29 

common  law.  The  conception  of  it  went  along  with 
the  dawning  ideal  of  the  free  State.  And  the  history 
of  its  growth  is  identical  with  the  history  of  that  State. 
The  long  controversy  over  the  kind  of  law  that  is  de 
Jure  divino  and  the  kind  that  is  de  Jure  humano  was, 
on  its  political  side,  a  debate  between  the  interests  of 
one  age  and  of  one  class  of  men,  interests  which  had 
fortified  themselves  on  the  high  ground  of  a  sacred 
past,  and  so  restrained  the  idea  of  rights  within  their 
own  camp,  and  the  interests  of  a  later  age  and  of  a 
different  class  of  men,  who  had  no  authority  except 
the  depth  and  permanence  of  their  desires  and  the 
consequent  necessity,  under  which  the  State  found  it- 
self, of  taking  them  seriously.  The  law  of  the  tribal 
society  could  not  consciously  recognize  any  interests 
save  vested  interests.  By  grace  of  necessity  and  the 
logic  of  deepening  experience,  interests  outside  the 
pale  of  vested  interests  might  be  allowed  to  contract 
a  left-handed  marriage  with  them.  But  no  conscious 
recognition  of  them,  as  being  in  any  final  sense  real 
and  primary,  was  possible.  Man-made  law,  on  the 
contrary,  was  under  heavy  bonds  to  its  own  nature  to 
do  just  this.  It  ultimately  involved  the  rightfulness 
and  even  the  sanctity  of  change,  seeing  that  the  or- 
ganic law  was  constitutional  only  in  so  far  as  it  satis- 
fied changing  human  wants,  and  therefore  had  to  keep 
broadening  its  area  and  deepening  its  reach.  The 
publication  of  the  Ten  Tables  which  proclaimed  law 
at  Rome  to  be  common  property,  and  Lincoln's 
Gettysburg  address  with  its  immortal  words  —  "  gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people,"  -  are  chapters  in  a  single  book.  The 
thought  of  a  man-made  law,  as  distinct  from  sacred 


30  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

custom,  carried  under  its  heart  the  belief  in  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  permanent  desires  of  the  lowest 
classes. 

While,  however,  this  great  step  was  taken  both  at 
Athens  and  at  Rome,  it  was  not  given  to  the  former 
to  go  on  to  the  full  consequences  of  it.  No  great 
system  of  law  was  developed  at  Athens ;  the  profits 
of  the  movement  from  the  Tribe  towards  the  free 
State  were  not  capitalized,  so  that  they  might  become 
the  world's  property.  What  Athens,  representing 
Greece,  contributed  to  the  campaign  against  caste, 
was  not  law  but  culture.  The  Greek  and  the  Roman 
both  sought  the  universal.  But  the  former  expressed 
it  in  terms  of  the  interpreting  reason  rather  than  the 
forthputting  will.  He  did  not  seek  a  constitution  of 
rights  that  should  give  peace  to  an  empire,  but  a 
cosmos  of  thought  that  should  deliver  the  mind  from 
the  torture  of  a  chaotic  and  self-contradictory  experi- 
ence. Yet  the  universal  which  was  the  desire  of 
Hellas  strove  to  keep  close  to  the  earth  and  to  take 
full  cognizance  of  the  individual  things  that  make  up 
the  visible  world.  The  Greek's  view  of  the  universe 
was  the  first  philosophy.  The  aim  of  philosophy  is 
a  whole  that  shall  fulfil  the  parts  and  not  absorb 
them.  This  distinguishes  it  from  mysticism;  for 
thoroughgoing  mysticism  is  in  too  great  a  hurry  to 
reach  its  unity.  The  one  pushes  the  many  out  of  the 
mind.  But  philosophy  is  philosophy  by  virtue  of  its 
resolutely  facing  the  question  —  How  shall  we  find 
and  keep  the  one  in  the  many  without  losing  either  ? 
Hence  the  universal  it  seeks  must  make  itself  at 
home  in  time  and  space  and  keep  house  with  the 
individual. 


II  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL    CONSCIENCE  31 

The  true  individual  and  the  true  universal  travel 
together  in  history.  This  is  shown  by  the  relation 
"between  Socrates  and  his  forerunners  the  Sophists, 
who  stirred  up  war  between  the  individual  and  the 
universal.  They  said,  with  Gorgias,  nothing  exists, 
meaning  nothing  universal ;  if  it  existed  it  would  be 
unknowable ;  if  it  existed  and  were  unknowable,  it 
could  not  be  made  known  to  others.  They  said  with 
Protagoras  that  man,  meaning  the  individual  man, 
is  the  measure  of  all  things.  The  result  was  intel- 
lectual impressionism  and  social  atomism.  Socrates 
did  not  take  the  field  against  Sophists  as  Aris- 
tophanes did,  with  "the  good  old  times"  for  his 
shield,  and  satire  for  his  sword ;  but  with  the  very 
saying  which  seemed  so  fatal,  "  Man  is  the  measure 
of  all  things."  The  cure  for  the  wound  was  hidden 
in  the  spear  that  made  it.  The  knowledge  of  the 
deeper  self  was  the  way  to  the  generic  self.  Man  is 
indeed  the  measure  of  all  things,  but  not  the  man  of 
impressions,  nor  the  man  of  pleasures,  but  man  the 
universal,  the  deep  and  permanently  human.  And 
when  Socrates  had  shown  this,  the  door  opened  wide 
into  Plato's  noble  saying,  —  God  is  the  measure  of  all 
things. 

The  connection  is  seen  again  in  the  relation  be- 
tween Kant  and  the  Enlightenment.  The  typical 
eighteenth  century  man  would  fain  have  set  up  the 
present  as  maker  of  itself,  acknowledging  no  other 
kin.  He  was  in  no  way  a  Sophist.  On  the  contrary 
his  dogmas,  though  few,  were  unhesitating,  and  he 
appealed  to  an  infallible  common  sense.  So  he  did 
not  destroy  because  he  was  hopeless,  but  because  he 
was  a  "  hardened  optimist."  The  belief  in  perfecta- 


32  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

bility  was  bred  in  his  bones.  He  insured  his  hopes, 
however,  either  in  terms  of  pure  sensationalism  or  of 
immediate  feeling.  Kant  was  as  thoroughly  an  eigh- 
teenth century  man  as  Voltaire,  in  his  hatred  of  ex- 
ternal authority.  If  the  Past  was  to  go  on  living,  it 
must  pay  its  taxes  by  coming  within  the  living  pres- 
ent and  demonstrating  its  indispensableness  as  an 
aspect  of  working  consciousness.  But  the  Present 
which  thus  asserts  its  sovereignty  is  not  the  present 
of  a  naked  sensation  or  an  immediate  feeling.  Its 
unit  is  an  individual  indeed,  but  a  universal  individual 
who  will  take  nothing  for  his  law  that  may  not  be 
law  for  all  men.  Thus  the  universal  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things. 

Finally,  the  connection  is  seen  even  more  clearly 
in  the  contrast  of  a  man  who  is  a  mere  leader  of 
fashion  with  a  prophet  like  Jeremiah.  The  former's 
standard  of  catholicity  canonizes  trifles  and  takes 
the  barren  places  within  its  own  little  paddock  for 
the  footprints  of  Adam.  There  is  nothing  univer- 
sal here,  no  money  current  with  the  merchants  of 
light,  all  are  petty  traders.  No  more  is  there  any- 
thing individual  to  be  found  here.  Fad  and  fate  are 
lumped  under  the  name  of  fashion.  The  true  indi- 
vidual and  the  true  universal  die  together.  Jeremiah, 
on  the  contrary,  was  supremely  individual.  He  felt 
himself  to  be  set  apart  even  from  the  womb.  He 
takes  the  field  almost  single-handed  against  the  whole 
visible  Israel.  And  so  he  reaches  the  ideal  Israel. 
He  is  catholic  because  he  is  greatly  individual.  It  is 
plain  then  that  the  hope  of  a  genuine  universalism 
lies  in  the  deepening  and  clarifying  of  self-conscious- 
ness. In  guarantees  for  the  principle  of  individuality 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  33 

is  the  heart  of  history  wrapped  up.  In  that  quarter 
alone  can  money  be  struck  that  shall  have  currency 
wider  than  all  classes  and  cliques. 

Greece  was  the  home  of  individuality.  Nature  had 
taken  great  pains  to  have  it  so.  The  land  is  wonder- 
fully broken  up  and  parcelled  out.  There  is  no  great 
river  like  the  Nile,  no  plains  like  those  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, which  caused  civilization  to  flow  in  a  broad 
but  shallow  channel.  It  is  a  land  of  explicit  bound- 
aries and  definite  horizons.  Too  small  and  irregular 
in  itself  to  suggest  a  continental  mass,  its  character 
is  intensified  by  the  sea  which  surrounds  it  and  well- 
nigh  pervades  it.  In  Nature's  plainest  handwriting 
it  was  willed  that  this  should  be  a  land  where  muni- 
cipal life  should  be  intense  and  the  principle  of  home 
rule  find  free  play.  If  we  are  careful  to  remember 
that  each  of  the  little  States  which  grew  up  here  in 
such  astonishing  numbers  was  quite  as  truly  a  Church 
as  a  State,  so  that  all  the  feelings  which  flow  out  of 
our  hearts  into  so  many  channels,  here  ran  in  one 
very  narrow  and  deep  channel,  we  may  imagine  how 
strong  was  the  grip  of  local  piety  and  patriotism. 

At  the  same  time  and  for  the  same  reason  there 
was  no  priesthood  in  the  sense  of  Egypt,  Chaldea, 
and  India.  Where  the  centre  of  the  State  was  al- 
most within  bowshot  of  the  circumference,  the  priestly 
element  could  not  widely  differentiate  itself  from  the 
lay.  Here  was  given  the  possibility  of  a  philosophy 
which  is  philosophy  indeed,  having  no  final  authori- 
tative texts,  no  professional  guardians  of  dogma ;  but 
which,  looking  up  at  the  sky  and  in  upon  the  mind, 
thinks  itself  out,  obedient  to  no  laws  save  those  which 
are  implicit  in  the  desire  to  think  and  think  straight. 


34  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

We  therefore  find  in  Greece  what  we  may  call  a  lay- 
man's view  of  the  universe.  How  significant  this  is, 
a  glance  at  the  history  of  modern  times  will  show. 
Since  the  thirteenth  century  the  laymen  have  gone 
on  rising  in  value.  They  have  brought  with  them  the 
State  and  all  that  belongs  to  it,  and  are  forcing  theol- 
ogy to  recast  its  categories  so  as  to  emphasize  the 
divine  immanence. 

The  lay  of  the  land  in  like  manner  made  a  great 
monarchy  impossible.  A  developed  monarchy  de- 
mands a  broad  base.  It  must  have  large  revenues 
and  great  armies :  and  the  monarch  must  be  far  from 
the  eyes  of  the  great  majority  of  his  subjects.  But 
in  the  Greek  State  every  citizen  might  interview  the 
king  at  almost  any  time  of  day.  Familiarity  put 
mystery  out  of  the  question.  At  the  same  time  there 
could  be  no  great  army.  The  revenues  did  not 
permit  it.  The  constitution  of  the  primitive  tribe, 
happily  growing  within  the  narrow  frontiers  of  the 
City-state,  vetoed  it.  The  Greek  soldier  at  his  best, 
before  the  days  of  Alexander,  was  a  foot-soldier. 
And  the  history  of  infantry  on  the  whole  has  been 
the  history  of  Democracy. 

As  the  result  of  this  deliverance  from  the  princi- 
ples of  the  primitive  hierarchies  and  the  early  em- 
pires, Greece  was  the  land  where  the  magic  word 
"  Freedom  "  began  its  career.  Mitford's  defence  of 
Sparta,  Grote's  enthusiasm  for  Athens,  were  not  lit- 
erary gymnastics  but  the  feeding  of  fires  kindled  in 
Hellas.  The  committee  that  spoiled  the  map  of  New 
York  with  their  names  for  cities  went  to  the  Classical 
Dictionary,  not  because  they  knew  the  classics,  but 
because  Greece,  like  Rome,  stood  in  their  minds  for 


H  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  35 

liberty.  Greece  was  free  as  no  country  before  her 
was  free.  Her  freedom  was  twofold,  political  and 
intellectual.  The  two  together  produced  the  first 
critical  climate  the  world  had  seen.  Questions  be- 
came the  order  of  the  day,  not  for  the  school  only 
or  for  some  inner  circle  of  speculative  priests,  but 
for  the  market-place  and  the  highway.  Into  this 
critical  climate  the  stream  of  time  bore  down  from 
sacred  antiquity  the  cake  of  custom  that  had  created 
and  at  the  same  time  immobilized  the  earliest  socie- 
ties. The  cake  dissolved. 

To  separate  the  part  played  by  the  Greek  genius 
from  the  part  played  by  opportunity  and  environ- 
ment is  impossible.  Racial  character  is  the  latter- 
day  substitute  for  the  old-fashioned  sovereignty  of 
God,  a  convenient  asylum  whereto  the  unnamable 
flees,  while  curiosity,  pursuing  until  footsore,  returns 
with  its  ignorance  christened  as  wisdom.  But  con- 
cerning the  working  mind  of  Greece,  wherein  native 
genius  cohered  with  the  environment,  we  may  say 
positively  that  it  combined  creativeness  with  a  deep 
sense  of  limit  and  measure.  The  two  things  are  not 
wont  to  go  together.  Their  happy  marriage  in  Hellas 
gave  birth  to  an  extraordinary  ability  to  reach  the  uni- 
versal without  abandoning  the  individual.  And  it  was 
along  this  line  that  the  great  gains  of  the  social  ques- 
tion were  to  be  made.  A  universal  that  flies  off  from 
the  concrete  individual,  taking  wing  into  mysticism, 
shall  surely  lack  driving  power  in  politics.  An  in- 
dividuality that  withdraws  from  the  universal  into 
atomism  shall  as  surely  lack  all  power  of  appeal 
to  the  imagination.  To  see  a  clear  and  specific  in- 
dividual having  a  definite  address  in  time  and  space, 


36  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

yet  to  see  him  in  the  light  of  the  universal  and  as 
being  capable  of  providing  carriage  for  the  weighti- 
est ideals,  —  this  and  nothing  less  is  what  social 
reform  demands.  The  Greek  mind  did  the  noblest 
pioneer  work  in  this  quarter  by  reason  of  the  union 
it  brought  about  between  spontaneity  and  the  sense 
for  measure. 

This  is  seen  in  aesthetics.  Beauty  is  that  which 
completely  conciliates  the  end  and  the  means.  In 
a  mere  machine  all  is  means  and  the  end  lies  outside 
it.  A  machine  sometimes  ceases  to  be  a  machine. 
A  locomotive  flying  through  the  night,  its  white 
plume  shot  through  with  gold  from  its  own  furnace 
fires,  is  something  more  than  a  machine.  But  as  a 
machine  it  has  its  end  outside  itself,  in  getting  peo- 
ple to  their  homes.  A  truly  beautiful  object,  what- 
ever its  kind,  enables  the  end  to  dwell  within  the 
means.  Thus  a  beautiful  face  has  its  end  within 
itself.  Disinterested  admiration  has  no  desire  to 
go  beyond  it  to  find  its  use.  A  noble  deed,  shin- 
ing by  its  own  inner  light,  reconciles  the  mixed 
material  of  history  and  the  divine  purpose  at  work 
upon  the  material.  Sidney's  surrender  of  the  cup 
of  cold  water  on  the  battlefield  enables  us  to  for- 
get for  a  while  the  hideousness  of  war,  and  find 
peace  in  the  loveliness  of  the  deed,  as  if  history 
had  already  reached  the  divine  far-off  event  towards 
which  she  so  slowly  labors,  and  as  if  the  pain  of 
waiting  for  the  perfect  were  ended.  Beauty,  in  a 
word,  is  at  the  same  time  the  victory  of  the  true 
universal  over  the  vague,  and  of  the  real  individual 
over  the  atom.  The  Madonna  is  as  individual  as  the 
woman  in  the  street-car,  yet  she  belongs  everywhere. 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  37 

The  Greek  legends  give  us  a  striking  example. 
Compare  their  hero  tales  with  those  of  India,  and 
straightway  a  great  difference  starts  up.  Widely 
apart  as  the  Hindoo  is  from  the  Roman,  at  this 
point  they  meet.  The  hero  of  Rome,  ./Eneas,  is 
dressed  in  a  cloud  of  divine  influence  that  hides  his 
individuality.  The  Hindoo  hero  also  is  clad  in  a 
cloud,  not  indeed  of  abstraction  but  of  myth,  so 
that  at  any  crisis  the  path  of  the  story  may  end  in 
the  sea.  The  Greek  heroes,  on  the  contrary,  are 
as  clear  as  a  photograph  and  as  generic  as  a  noble 
portrait.  Through  Hawthorne  and  Kingsley  they 
become  as  real  to  our  boys  as  Robinson  Crusoe. 
They  have  the  buoyancy  of  the  northwest  wind  in 
summer,  with  the  perfect  definition  of  landscape 
and  cloudland  which  that  kingliest  of  winds  creates. 
The  characteristic  myths  of  Greece  have  the  same 
nature.  The  foam-born  Aphrodite  is  clear,  just  as 
the  white  line  drawn  by  the  sea  around  a  sand-bar 
is  clear,  and  has  also  its  subtleness.  Athene,  born 
full-armed,  is  the  leap  of  the  day  out  of  the  deep 
of  the  sky,  like  the  leap  of  the  sun  from  the  ocean. 
The  Gods  are  thoroughly  personified.  There  is  no 
Fate  in  them.  A  Fate  does  indeed  stand  behind 
them,  the  indigested  and  unassimilated  forces  of 
dark  nature.  But  they  themselves  are  almost  com- 
pletely individualized.  They  are  not  nature-forces 
wearing  the  mask  of  individuality  like  the  Gods  of 
Egypt.  They  do  not  make  off  into  the  mist  like 
the  Gods  of  India.  As  the  result,  the  Greek  epic, 
where  the  Gods  and  the  men  of  Greece  live  and 
move  in  each  other's  company,  is  the  perfection  of 
narrative.  Just  as  in  Plato  the  myth  and  the  syllo- 


38  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

gism  have  kissed  each  other,  so  in  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  have  myths  and  the  story  of  adventure 
met  together.  The  path  does  not  end  in  the  sea. 
The  deeds  and  the  doers  of  them  are  as  definite  as 
a  good  report  in  a  newspaper  concerning  yesterday's 
fire,  while  they  have  the  mystical  charm  of  a  noble 
landscape  in  which  sense  and  spirit  blend. 

The  Greek  temple  and  statue  betoken  all  this.  In 
both  of  them  form  triumphs  over  matter,  without 
losing  the  solidity  of  matter.  The  Egyptian  temple 
impresses  us  by  its  grandeur,  but  it  is  the  grandeur 
of  splendid  masses  which  sometimes  oppress  us  by 
their  weight.  They  do  not  have  a  truly  spiritual 
character.  The  Semitic  temple  is  not  an  organism 
but  an  aggregation  of  parts.  It  can  grow  indefinitely 
without  losing  itself,  because  it  has  no  clear  individu- 
ality to  lose.  But  the  Greek  temple  is  all  form  and 
yet  all  matter.  The  stuff  is  taken  up  into  the  idea 
without  becoming  ghost-like.  So,  too,  in  the  case  of 
the  statue.  The  divine  and  the  human,  as  it  was 
given  to  the  Hellenes  to  see  them,  are  wedded.  The 
divine  becomes  visible.  The  visible  is  celestialized. 
The  result  is  a  thing  called  classic,  and  the  classic, 
in  Professor  Norton's  happy  definition,  is  contempo- 
rary with  all  time.  The  reason  is  that  it  is  both  indi- 
vidual and  universal. 

In  theology  the  Greeks  achieved  a  clear  distinction 
between  the  human  and  the  divine.  Our  own  genera- 
tion is  making  a  great  stir  over  the  harmfulness  of 
the  distinction  between  things  sacred  and  things 
secular.  The  stir  is  justified  by  our  needs.  Yet  it 
becomes  us  not  to  altogether  forget  our  history  while 
we  are  preaching  our  sermons.  That  distinction  was, 


ii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  39 

in  its  day,  a  notable  achievement.  It  was  a  part  of  the 
redemption-money  by  which  man  purchased  his  free- 
dom from  a  tyranny  of  the  past.  Primitive  law  does 
not  know  the  distinction.  It  identifies  the  sacred 
and  secular.  Each  meal  is  a  sacrifice.  Every  tri- 
fling custom  is  an  article  of  the  constitution.  Police 
law  and  ethics  are  confounded.  This  confusion  was 
necessary  before  the  dawn  of  history,  and  even  long 
after,  inasmuch  as  man's  primary  need  was  discipline 
with  an  iron  hand.  But  as  the  sun  of  history  mounted 
higher,  the  confusion  became  untimely.  The  clear 
distinction  of  the  human  and  the  divine  delivered 
the  human  individual  both  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
tribe,  which  was  the  first  infallible  church,  and  from 
the  spiritual  quicksand  of  Oriental  confusion  between 
deity  and  humanity. 

It  may  be  thought  that  I  have  dwelt  at  undue  and 
wasteful  length  on  this  subject  of  Greek  genius  and 
environment  in  relation  to  the  principle  of  individu- 
ality. Unless  however  I  wholly  misread  the  signs  of 
the  times,  one  of  the  sore  perils  besetting  us  is  a 
too  direct  approach  to  the  social  question.  It  is  a 
reformation  that  we  need,  not  a  revolution.  And  to 
that  end  we  need  to  convince  ourselves  that  the  stake 
of  socialism  is  individuality.  If  we  do  not  clear  our 
minds  on  this  point,  we  shall  find  ourselves  hiring 
the  Devil  to  fight  the  Lord's  battles.  And  to  clear 
our  minds,  nothing  can  be  so  good  as  the  history 
of  the  principle  of  individuality.  The  higher  forces 
of  our  age  are  split  up  and  scattered.  The  men  of 
culture  and  art,  for  the  most  part,  either  turn  away 
from  social  reform  or  go  into  it  with  anxious  ques- 
tionings and  a  looking  over  the  shoulder.  To  see 


40  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE    '     CHAP. 

that  the  fortunes  of  art  and  of  democratic  society 
and  of  social  reform  are  afloat  on  a  single  bottom 
should  go  far  towards  unifying  our  scattered  forces. 
To  know  that  the  hope  of  a  nobler  culture  for  the 
world  is  bound  up  with  the  draining  of  the  slums, 
with  success  in  teaching  grass  to  grow  where  now 
corruption  reigns,  is  to  close  ranks  for  battle.  And 
this  knowledge  comes  through  the  study  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuality  in  its  history.  We  are  not  then 
wandering  in  the  fields,  but  digging  at  the  roots  of 
the  social  question,  when  we  try  to  show  that  Greece 
made  her  contribution  to  the  campaign  against  caste 
by  discovering  that  the  classic,  the  universal  ele- 
ments of  the  world's  experience,  can  be  got  at  only 
by  going  deeper  into  the  individual  man.  The  deep- 
ened sense  of  individuality  draws  after  it  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  universal.  In  terms  of  the  reason  the 
necessity  of  this  is  plain.  So  long  as  a  man  remains 
part  and  parcel  of  a  great  cake  of  habit  he  is  not  dis- 
turbed by  questions  and  consequently  has  no  need 
of  philosophy.  Inconsistence  and  contradictions  do 
not  trouble  his  slumber,  although  they  may  be  swarm- 
ing about  his  pillow.  The  fine  and  easy  rule  —  it 
has  always  been  done  this  way  and  in  no  other 
—  insures  his  rest. 

When  the  cake  of  habit  breaks  up,  when  the  Tribe 
ceases  to  be  the  unit,  and  a  man  by  himself  begins  to 
count  for  one,  mental  difficulty  and  its  attendant 
wonder  arise.  Thus  is  philosophy  born.  A  cosmos 
of  experience  is  necessary.  Problems  thrust  them- 
selves on  the  mind.  And  an  insoluble  problem 
means  either  suicide  or  the  monastery.  The  difficulty 
must  either  open  into  a  deeper  intellectual  universal- 


II  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  41 

ism  or  be  denied  by  mysticism.  Thus  the  deepened 
sense  of  individuality  results  in  logic.  Things  taken 
all  together  seem  to  deny  their  connection  with  con- 
sciousness. The  broken  bridge  is  rebuilt  by  a  system 
of  definitions.  The  saddle-maker  and  Alcibiades  are 
brought  within  the  definition,  —  man.  Thus  again 
science,  in  the  Greek  and  modern  meaning  of  it, 
results.  Things  taken  all  together  seem  to  deny  con- 
nection with  each  other.  Such  a  denial  of  connection 
is  chaos.  The  mind  overcomes  it  by  a  deepened 
sense  of  law,  a  larger  view  of  the  whole.  And  thus, 
finally,  history  arises.  Until  the  individual  acquires 
wings  of  ecstasy,  so  long  as  he  has  hands  and  feet, 
he  must  find  a  meaning  in  the  past.  He  must  either 
have  a  philosophy  of  history  or  deny  history.  So, 
writing  up  the  wars  of  small  states,  he  creates  a 
possession  for  all  time. 

We  find  then  that  individualism  and  universalism 
in  Greece  are  two  forms  of  one  force.  The  clarifica- 
tion of  self-consciousness  undoes  the  tribal  aristocracy, 
and  thus  helps  to  define  the  elemental  man  and  create 
a  new  unit  for  sociology.  The  bent  of  clear  thought 
is  by  nature  against  the  grain  of  an  aristocracy  built 
up  on  birth  or  money  or  prowess.  For,  in  the  first 
place,  in  order  to  find  its  saving  unities  it  must  find 
the  things  that  have  the  widest  range  in  distinction 
from  the  things  that  have  a  narrow  range,  the  eternal 
as  distinct  from  the  transient.  And  in  the  second 
place,  clear  thought  works  away  from  the  outer 
world,  the  world  of  the  eye,  towards  the  inner  world, 
the  world  of  the  unseen.  Things  that  were  of 
supreme  import  to  the  primitive  aristocracy  become 
matters  of  indifference.  The  sacred  genealogy  takes 


42  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

its  place  as  one  phenomenon  amongst  a  vast  mass 
of  phenomena.  To  constitute  an  aristocracy  there 
must  be  something  classed  by  itself.  To  be  thrown 
into  a  heap  is  fatal  to  it.  And  this  is  what  philosophy 
does  with  aristocracy.  Only  the  universally  valid  can 
become  a  law  of  thought.  And  the  only  true  aristo- 
crat is  the  thinker. 

With  the  logic  of  the  inner  life  the  history  of  the 
outer  life  kept  step.  The  political  unit  of  Greece  had 
been  the  City.  Aristotle  could  not  conceive  the  ideal 
Free  State  as  containing  more  than  a  hundred  thou- 
sand people.  Many  a  Greek  could  walk  around  his 
fatherland  in  half  a  day  without  starting  a  hair,  and 
some  could  do  it  before  breakfast.  But  in  the  empire 
of  Alexander  the  City  lost  heart  and  meaning.  It 
became  like  a  broken  vase,  so  that  the  good  Greek 
could  no  longer  pour  his  best  life  into  it.  The  old 
unities  were  shattered.  The  individual  was  turned 
loose.  How  shall  he  make  a  new  home  for  himself  ? 
The  parallel  with  our  own  day  is  suggestive.  Our 
inherited  theological  and  confessional  systems  have 
been  seriously  shaken.  The  conscience  stands  alone 
and  almost  unprotected.  Church  and  Bible  no  longer 
stand  as  bulwarks  between  it  and  the  overwhelming 
mystery  of  being.  The  physical  universe  looms  up 
larger  and  more  terrifying.  Where  find  or  build  a 
new  home  ? 

The  external  steadily  fell  in  value.  Zeno  urged 
people  not  to  build  gymnasiums  in  their  cities,  because 
the  care  of  the  inner  life  ought  to  be  the  supreme 
concern.  This  bodes  ill  to  the  Olympic  games. 
There's  a  steady  movement  towards  the  time  when 
Marcus  Aurelius  says,  "  Some  men  hunt  hares  and 


ii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  43 

some  hunt  Quadi."  He  made  this  entry  in  his  diary 
when  he  was  in  the  thick  of  a  campaign  against 
Rome's  enemies.  Try  to  fancy  Fabius  saying,  "  Some 
men  fight  fleas  and  some  fight  Carthaginians." 
Renan  truly  says  concerning  Marcus'  warfare :  A 
thing  that  is  done  because  there  might  be  something 
worse  is  never  well  done.  Plainly  the  body  and  all 
that  it  inherits  is  going  below  the  horizon  of  spiritual 
vision.  The  soul  is  outstanding.  The  heart  of  antiq- 
uity forsakes  politics.  The  higher  life  and  mind 
ebb  away  from  those  things  for  which  Leonidas 
counted  it  great  gain  to  die. 

Clear  thinking,  helped  on  by  this  fall  in  the  value 
of  the  external,  issued  in  the  distinction  between  the 
Natural  and  the  Positive.  The  Sophists  first  drew 
it.  The  Stoics  made  it  a  permanent  principle. 
"  Nature "  denoted  for  them  the  larger  world  of 
reality,  which  refused  to  come  within  any  given  insti- 
tution or  set  of  institutions.  Indeed,  it  affirmed  that 
a  fortune  of  some  sort  lay  outside  all  existing  insti- 
tutes, and  that  the  outstanding  soul  must  go  forth  to 
find  it.  The  vast  significance  of  the  distinction  will 
dawn  on  us,  if  we  run  our  eyes  down  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  where  it  outcrops  across  the  whole  field. 
The  "  Positive  "  includes  all  existing  institutions  and 
laws.  "  Nature  "  means  that  possibility  of  indefinitely 
better  institutions  and  laws  which  lies  in  wait  for  the 
legislator.  When  Jefferson  said  that  the  tree  of 
liberty  needed  to  be  periodically  watered  with  blood, 
he  was  working  this  vein  with  dynamite.  The  "  Bill 
of  Rights  "  in  English  and  American  constitutional 
development  draws  much  of  its  strength  from  this 
distinction.  Wrapped  up  in  it  is  the  authority  to 


44  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

freely  criticise  the  whole  political  and  social  structure 
as  it  exists  at  any  given  time,  while  calling  out  loudly 
for  a  better  one.  Visible  institutions  must  show  and 
make  good  their  title  deeds  before  reason  and  use. 

Perhaps  the  latent  power  of  the  distinction  will  dis- 
close itself  even  more  plainly  if  we  contrast  Greece 
with  the  Orient  in  general  on  the  one  hand,  and  with 
India  in  particular  on  the  other.  Stanley  said  that 
the  East  is  an  unburied  Pompeii ;  because  custom  still 
reigns  there,  and  life  is  shaped  by  canonic  traditions. 
Whatever  is  good  is  level  to  the  past,  and  higher  level 
there  cannot  be.  Is  it  not  plain  then  that  in  the 
Greek  doctrine  concerning  the  Positive  in  relation  to 
the  Natural  there  is  a  great  contribution  to  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  laborer,  in  that  it  makes  social  change 
a  part  of  the  law  of  righteousness  ?  The  contrast 
with  India  finishes  the  demonstration.  In  that  land 
the  tribal  ideal,  thanks  to  the  environment,  hardened 
into  the  caste  system.  The  existing  frame  of  society 
was  eternized.  Buddhism  came  on  the  field,  and  under 
its  attack  the  Positive  disappeared.  But  it  dragged 
with  it  into  the  gulf  of  forgetfulness  all  political 
institutions,  inasmuch  as  its  doctrine  of  illusion  made 
history  itself  a  non-ethical  process.  Thus  Buddhism, 
while  abolishing  caste,  had  no  lasting  efficacy  as  a 
political  force.  It  healed  souls,  but  it  took  them  away 
from  the  invisible  order.  It  could  not  create  or  assist 
in  creating  a  Free  State.  In  politics  it  had  little  re- 
forming power.  The  Greek  conception  of  the  Posi- 
tive in  relation  to  the  Natural  did  possess  this  power 
to  a  high  degree.  While  it  laid  the  foundation  of 
right  deeper  than  all  existing  institutions,  it  did  not 
destroy  those  institutions  in  principle,  but  compelled 


GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE 


45 


them  to  keep  open  house  to  improvements.  It  did 
not  undo  history,  but  put  the  spur  to  it.  The  Natural 
is  within  the  Positive,  being  the  promise  and  potence 
of  an  enlarged  and  deepened  Positive.  Thus  the  dis- 
tinction is  a  door  through  which  the  potential  enters 
in  to  criticise  and  reform  the  actual. 

Philosophy,  aided  by  the  times,  made  another  sig- 
nificant gain,  —  the  clear  distinction  between  the  mate- 
rial and  the  spiritual.  This  means  that  a  new  world 
is  coming  above  the  horizon,  whither  the  imagination 
could  escape  from  a  visible  world  wherein  interest 
scornfully  forced  right  to  the  wall.  When  -Socrates, 
towards  the  close  of  the  Republic,  is  asked  where  the 
constitution  of  his  ideal  community  is  to  be  found,  he 
says,"  Perhaps  in  heaven."  We  have  seen  how  the 
individual  was  being  driven  out  of  society  into  him- 
self. This  "heaven"  is  the  home  of  the  larger  self. 
It  is  a  brave  land  and  a  broad  where  the  disinherited 
man  can  gather  about  himself  a  brave  estate.  Exter- 
nal difficulties  cease  from  troubling,  and  the  men  who 
are  wearied  with  trying  to  make  the  crocked  paths 
straight  may  rest  their  imaginations.  Let  it  not  for 
a  moment  be  thought  that  the  world  of  imagination 
is  no  more  solid  than  the  world  of  ghosts.  Plato's 
Republic  is  not  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,  but 
has  the  pith  of  constitutions,  and  contains  the  promise 
of  social  change.  Once  more,  the  comparison  with 
the  monastic  mysticism  of  India  will  instruct  us. 
The  Buddhist  doctrine  of  the  inner  life  has  great 
depths  and  sweetness  and  a  most  subtle  charm. 
Nothing  in  Greek  experience  can  hope  to  match  it. 
If  we  were  studying  the  history  of  quietism  and  seek- 
ing perfect  rest  for  the  single  soul,  we  should  not 


46  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

stay  long  in  Hellas.  It  is  the  idea  of  society,  how- 
ever, that  we  are  studying,  and  the  consummation  we 
devoutly  desire  is  an  organization  of  life  in  time  and 
space,  in  other  words,  a  State  that  shall  say  with 
Aristotle:  Noble  living  in  time  and  space,  noble  life 
in  terms  of  existence  within  the  visible  world,  is  the 
end  of  law.  Thorough-going  monastic  mysticism 
breeds  men  of  noble  patience  and  untiring  gentle- 
ness. But  the  true  reformer's  conscience  cannot  be 
trained  by  it.  To  the  making  of  that  goes,  along 
with  other  things,  a  sturdy  sense  of  the  reality  and 
worth  of  the  historical.  And  herein  the  Greek  doc- 
trine of  the  spiritual  shows  its  superiority  to  the  Hin- 
doo doctrine.  Spirituality  does  not  logically  undo  its 
hold  upon  the  visible.  It  has  in  it  the  promise  of  a 
kind  of  spirituality  which  may,  on  occasion,  throw 
the  tea  overboard  in  order  to  save  the  soul.  The 
saint  does  not  altogether  disown  the  citizen. 

Again,  Greece  created  theoretical  politics.  Now 
what  philosophy  is  to  self-consciousness,  political 
theory  is  to  the  State.  It  must  be  reasoned  out  and 
go  deep  into  the  nature  of  things  in  order  to  find  the 
common  root  of  different  conceptions.  It  is  there- 
fore under  heavy  bonds  not  to  identify  the  accidents 
of  the  State  with  its  essence.  Moreover,  it  is  obliged 
to  concede  a  standing-ground  for  the  questioner  inside 
the  social  order,  and  to  make  criticism  in  some  sense 
constitutional ;  for  otherwise  it  is  not  theory,  but  mere 
political  habit  backed  by  force.  The  attempt  of  the 
Greeks  to  give  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the 
State  is  conclusive  proof  that  we  have  left  behind  us 
the  tribal  stage  of  humanity,  wherein  the  State  was 
also  a  Church, — the  Church's  one  test  of  the  becom- 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  47 

ing  and  the  practicable  being  the  practice  of  gray  an- 
tiquity. We  have  reached  the  stage  where  authority 
must  build  upon  use,  and  law  derive  its  sanctity  from 
the  common  good.  The  true  State  cannot  get  along 
with  the  caste  principle.  And  the  appearance  of 
political  philosophy  is  a  plain  indication  that  the  tap- 
root of  the  caste  principle  has  been  cut  by  reason. 

Finally  the  Stoic  cosmopolitanism  was  won.  The 
Stoics  very  happily  illustrated  the  bearings  of  Greek 
experience  upon  sociology,  for  they  kept  them- 
selves more  or  less  in  society  and  politics,  although 
they  were  often  homesick  and  heartsick.  Hence 
they  make  clear  the  influence  of  Greek  philosophy 
upon  social  law.  Their  cosmopolitanism  removes  the 
distinctions  between  nation  and  nation,  between  class 
and  class.  Such  distinctions  are  no  better  than  sur- 
face debris.  Below  them  all  is  man  as  man.  And 
this  universal  humanity  is  the  sole  test  of  real  values. 
Thus,  under  the  very  feet  of  existing  institutions  is 
found  a  definition  of  man  that  summons  traditional 
classifications  and  standards  of  value  before  an  au- 
thoritative auditing  committee.  Humanity,  written 
large  and  taken  largely,  is  now  the  trustee  of  all 
things  that  are  really  worth  while. 

All  these  gains  were  partially  organized  under 
three  heads  :  first,  philosophic  monotheism ;  second, 
Aristotle's  theory  of  development ;  third,  science. 
As  to  the  first,  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God 
draws  after  it  the  unity  of  society.  Its  possible  bear- 
ing upon  the  social  interests  of  the  downmost  man  is 
parallel  to  the  bearing  of  the  dogmatic  belief  in  the 
unity  of  Nature  upon  the  intellectual  fortunes  of  the 
smallest  things.  The  unity  of  Nature  authenticates 


48  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

to  reason  the  innate  right  of  the  dust  to  be  weighed 
and  interpreted.  In  like  manner  the  unity  of  God 
must  eventually  authenticate  to  reason  and  con- 
science the  innate  right  of  the  lowest  man  to  be 
reverenced  and  counted.  As  to  the  second  head,  Aris- 
totle's theory  of  development  grew  out  of  the  standing 
problem  in  Greece,  —  how  get  together  the  eternal, 
that  which  truly  is,  with  the  temporal,  that  which 
changes,  without  destroying  either  ?  The  theory  did 
not  have  any  career  before  it  in  antiquity.  But  that 
does  not  belittle  its  momentous  significance.  The 
idea  of  development  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  any 
one  who  refuses  to  identify  himself  with  the  past, 
while  keeping  up  his  connection  with  it.  Without 
that  idea  there  can  be  in  the  end  but  two  classes  of 
men  :  those  who  are  contemporaneous,  but  never  look 
back  ;  and  those  who  are  always  looking  back,  but  are 
never  contemporaneous.  Aristotle's  theory  is  the 
first  explicit  foundation,  on  the  philosophic  side,  of 
the  problem  of  history  which  is  the  moralization  of 
the  common  man.  For  it  affirms  progress  to  be  fun- 
damental in  Nature,  and  "the  idea  of  progress,  of 
development,"  says  Guizot,  "  is  the  fundamental 
idea  contained  in  the  word  civilization" 8.  As  to  the 
scientific  view  of  the  universe,  it  was  no  accident  that 
the  science  upon  which  our  view  of  the  universe 
rests,  came  to  light  along  with  the  Democracy  of 
Greece.  The  free  and  fearless  look  at  the  cosmos 
that  is  the  spirit  of  science,  and  the  free  and  fearless 
look  of  man  at  all  his  fellow-men  that  is  the  spirit  of 
Democracy,  cannot  permanently  exist  apart.  And 
science,  in  the  long  run,  makes  steadily  for  the  pos- 
sibilities of  a  true  Republic.  Every  stroke  of  workjt 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  49 

does  proclaims  the  spirituality  of  the  visible  world, 
seerngThatTto  be  spiritual  means  to  be  pregnant  with 
meaning,  and  to  be  full  of  primary  and  abiding  inter- 
est. Consequently,  science  compels  the  highest  good 
to  put  itself  on  intimate  terms  with  man's  life  in  its 
terrestrial  forms. 

But  in  the  very  midst  of  these  great  portents  and 
prophecies  of  the  new  world  the  birth-mark  of  the 
old  world  is  everywhere  apparent.  Slavery  colored 
all.  In  Aristotle's  theory  of  life,  leisure,  the  mother 
of  culture,  must  be  supported  by  slaves.  Handwork 
was  in  disrepute.  Plato,  in  the  Laws,  forbade  the  free- 
man doing  it.  Lucian,  in  his  essay  called  "  The 
Dream,"  confides  to  us  his  motives  for  his  choice 
of  a  profession.  He  felt  a  desire  in  early  days  to 
be  a  sculptor,  but  was  turned  from  it  by  the  fact  that 
it  was  handwork.  Better  be  a  second-rate  litterateur 
than  a  Pheidias.  A  new  and  far-nobler  aristocracy, 
an  aristocracy  of  mind,  had  driven  out  the  old.  It 
was,  however,  a  downright  aristocracy,  and  took  up 
a  strongly  sceptical  attitude  towards  the  spiritual 
capacity  of  the  masses. 

Plato  says  in  the  Timaeus,  "  To  find  out  the  maker 
and  Father  of  this  universe  is  difficult,  and  when 
found,  it  is  impossible  to  make  him  known  to  all." 
To  hold  and  fortify  this  position  would  bring  one 
necessarily  to  the  idea  of  a  teaching  caste.  Plato's 
monotheism  here  breaks  its  point  just  as  Aristotle's 
does  on  slavery.  We  have  an  aristocracy  of  intellect 
that  shows  its  color  very  plainly  in  the  second  century 
in  the  debate  between  the  Catholic  Church  and  Gnos- 
ticism. The  Gnostics  would  have  turned  the  Church 
into  a  spiritual  club.  They  stratified  humanity.  There 


50  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

are  souls  to  whom  the  deepest  truth  belongs  by  right, 
so  that  the  universe  cannot  part  them  from  it.  But 
the  mass  of  men  have  no  claim  to  the  highest.  And 
Basilides,  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  Gnostics,  said 
that  at  the  end  of  the  world  God  would  bring  enor- 
mous ignorance  upon  the  mass  of  souls,  lest  the 
desires  that  could  not  be  fulfilled  should  persist  in 
them,  thus  making  hell  eternal.9  However  deeply 
colored  this  dogma  may  be  by  Oriental  feeling,  it  is 
by  no  means  wholly  out  of  drawing  with  something 
in  Plato  himself.  He  is  very  far  indeed  from  a  re- 
ligion of  redemption  with  its  attitude  of  aggressive 
hopefulness  towards  the  commonest  man.  The  Father 
of  the  universe  cannot  be  made  known  to  all.  The 
one  and  only  best  thing  is  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
masses.  The  root  of  aristocracy  is  deep_as  God. 

The  Stoics  also  reveal  this  fatal  flaw  in  the  Greek 
view  of  the  world.  In  them  the  liberated  individual 
of  antiquity,  the  outstanding  soul,  reached  a  defini- 
tion of  man  that  contained  nothing  but  his  universal 
essence.  They  embodied  the  kindliest  spirit  of  their 
time  and  place.  Gentleness  and  pity  came  more 
and  more  to  be  central  in  their  ethics.  Slavery  was 
declared  to  be  contrary  to  Nature.  Pliny  calls  his 
slaves  "my  friends."  The  emphasis  wholly  ceased 
to  fall  on  social  distinction.  If  Epictetus  could  have 
met  Burns,  he  would  have  joined  heartily  in  his  "A 
man's  a  man  for  a'  that."  The  physical,  that  is  to 
say,  that  which  is  external  to  the  conscience  and 
alien  to  the  working  will,  lost  its  power  to  withstand 
the  will.  Stoicism  exalted  ethics  to  the  supreme  posi- 
tion. A  man's  character  is  his  fate. 

Yet  they  had  not  the  power  to  drive  their  defini- 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  51 

tion  home.  Their  eschatology  wets  the  bowstring. 
Eschatology  means  simply  the  opinions  men  have 
about  the  upshot  of  nature  and  history.  The  "Last 
Things "  are  the  things  that  come  out  of  the  fiery 
criticism  called  the  Judgment  Day,  in  the  shape  of 
pure  gold,  while  all  other  things  are  dross.  Escha- 
tology, then,  is  the  imaginative  preservation  of  the 
abiding  values.  It  is  the  doctrine  concerning  the  spir- 
itual substance  underlying  phenomena.  The  Last 
Things  are  the  real  things  as  the  reformer  views 
reality.  Now  the  Stoic  eschatology  pictured  the  ex- 
isting order  as  coming  to  an  end  in  a  cosmic  bonfire, 
in  order  that  a  new  cycle  of  being,  essentially  like 
the  old,  might  follow  it.  But  this  is  to  put  at  the  end 
of  the  world  a  no-man's  land,  where  the  writs  issued 
by  the  working  conscience  do  not  run.  To  what 
purpose  the  splendid  emphasis  on  morality  and  the 
moralizing  of  the  universal  man,  if  at  the  last  ethic 
is  to  lapse  into  physic  ?  Stoic  eschatology,  if  taken 
seriously,  puts  out  the  fire  of  enthusiasm  on  the 
hearth  of  the  universe.  And  even  if  it  is  not  taken 
seriously,  but  is  regarded  as  a  freak  of  fancy  rather 
than  a  sincere  work  of  imagination,  at  least,  it  gives  the 
conscience  no  aid  in  its  desperate  battle  against  the 
massive  and  inert,  if  not  actively  obstructive,  forces, 
of  society.  "The  universe  is  anonymous,"  say  Win- 
wood  Read;  "it  is  published  under  the  secondary 
laws." 10  He  speaks  as  an  optimist.  He  views  the 
world  in  terms  of  a  development  which  is  resistless, 
because  backed  by  all  the  resources  of  Nature,  and 
therefore  his  agnosticism  does  not  undo  his  hopeful- 
ness. It  was  not  so  with  the  Stoics.  Their  escha- 
tology practically  published  the  universe  under  the 


52  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

secondary  laws,  but  without  that  modern  enthusiasm 
for  the  universe  which  may  temporarily  strengthen 
and  equip  the  conscience.  The  Stoic  doctrine  either 
meant  nothing  or  it  meant  a  half-confessed  pessimism. 

It  was  impossible  for  the  reformer,  upon  such  a 
footing,  to  remain  whole-hearted.  The  righteousness 
of  the  reformer  means  nothing  but  whole-heartedness 
in  the  presence  of  great  odds.  That  lost,  the  road 
to  dualism  and  the  monastery  is  inevitable.  Ages 
that  are  characterized  by  social  unrest  are  necessarily 
ages  which  have  a  great  burden  of  pain  to  carry. 
What  is  going  on  to-day  proves  it.  Civilization  has 
brought  increased  capacity  for  pain.  The  free  State 
educates  its  members  to  take  note  of  their  neighbor's 
wrongs.  In  the  comparative  absence  of  war  the 
nerves  of  the  average  man  become  sensitive  to  his 
own  and  his  fellow's  hurts.  Improved  methods  of 
communication  bring  near  what  was  once  far  away. 
The  newspaper  gathers  for  us  all  the  world's  evil  re- 
ports. Thus  the  material  for  pain  and  the  capacity 
for  pain  grow  together.  And  the  conscience  that 
refuses  narcotics  of  any  kind,  be  they  the  narcotics 
of  the  clubman,  the  culturist,  or  the  monk,  can  only 
stand  up  to  its  work  by  grace  of  a  conception  that 
puts  the  best  and  deepest  things  of  the  universe  into 
society,  and  keeps  them  there.  But  the  Stoic  escha- 
tology  made  the  best  more  or  less  of  an  absentee. 

A  weak  and  faltering  doctrine  of  Last  Things  im- 
plies a  weakness  of  the  will.  For  eschatology  is  just 
the  translation  of  principle  into  cosmic  conclusions. 
The  will  and  the  imagination  are  inseparable,  being 
the  inner  and  the  outer  aspects  of  the  same  function. 
Imagination  is  the  aesthetic  of  the  will,  being  the 


ii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  53 

process  by  which  the  ethical  purpose  asserts  its 
sovereignty  over  the  materials  of  the  visible  world. 
Through  imagination  the  will  gives  itself  a  trium- 
phant spiritual  body,  and  thus  claims  history  for  its 
own,  asserting  the  right  of  eminent  domain  in  the  uni- 
verse. It  was  because  Aristotle  saw  this  truth  so 
plainly  that  he  declared  the  drama  to  be  more  ethical 
than  history,  since  history  was  largely  matter  without 
form.  It  is  here  that  the  poetic  faculty  has  its  spring. 
For  ^reat^oejry^is  only  one  form  or  another  of  the- 
belief  in  the  equivalence  of  matter  and  form,  of  the 
ideal  and  the  actual.  And  poetry  ceases  to  be  great 
ana  becomes,  as  is  largely  the  case  with  the  poetry 
of  to-day,  a  series  of  swallow-flights,  when  the  dog- 
matic belief  in  the  ultimate  equivalence  of  the  ideal 
and  the  actual  is  lost.  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory affords  us  a  good  illustration.  Its  charm  is  due 
to  the  equation  it  institutes  between  the  real  and  the 
rational.  The  equation  is  carried  through  at  the  cost 
of  much  arbitrariness  in  the  treatment  of  details.  It 
is  in  many  ways  a  feat  of  the  imagination.  It  has  all 
the  charm  and  some  of  the  defects  of  a  fairy  tale, 
yet  the  aggressive  reason,  braced  by  it,  goes  forth  to 
make  its  fortune. 

Thus  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  Last  Things  meant  that 
the  reforming  will  was  weak.  Man's  character  is  not 
his  fate  after  all.  The  reformer  is  sure  to  exchange 
his  heroism  for  pathos.  And  when  pathos  once 
creeps  in,  the  reformer  begins  to  put  himself  out  of 
the  combat.  The  definition  of  the  universal  man 
which  Stoicism  achieved,  it  could  not,  by  its  own 
strength,  drive  home. 

The  subject  of  Stoicism  opens  straight  into  the  inner 


54  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

life  of  the  Roman  Empire,  for  neither  could  Stoicism 
without  the  Empire  have  become  the  great  force  it 
was;  nor  could  the  Empire  without  Stoicism  have 
understood  itself  in  terms  of  law.  Rome  was  the 
residuary  legatee  of  antiquity,  and  through  her  it  did 
its  creative  work  upon  modernity.  She  won  this 
imperial  place  in  history  by  conquering  the  Mediter- 
ranean world  and  welding  all  its  lands  into  a  single 
State.  She  gave  to  the  ancient  world  the  first  long 
deep  breath  of  peace  it  ever  drew,  —  and  the  last. 
As  an  Empire,  she  finished  the  crushing  process 
which  the  hammer  of  Assyria  had  begun.  The  petty 
nations  lost  their  frontiers.  The  numerous  tribes 
were  thrown  together  as  upon  a  heap.  The  levelling 
power  of  such  a  process  and  its  ultimate  effect  upon 
religion  and  ethics  cannot  be  overestimated.  Provin- 
cial boundaries  disappear.  The  principle  of  vicinity 
on  a  vast  scale  is  substituted  for  tribal  kinships. 
Wholesale  syncretism  follows.  The  Empire  not  only 
afforded  a  vast  field  over  which  civilization  with  its 
constructive  forces  could  operate,  but  it  brought  over- 
whelming reinforcements  to  those  critical  energies  of 
Greece  which  were  busily  sapping  the  foundations 
of  the  ancient  aristocracies.  When  Caesar  invaded 
Gaul,  he  found  aristocracy  rampant.  Servitude  was 
widespread  and  of  the  harshest  kind.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  no  true  political  action,  no  unity 
between  the  tribes,  no  State,  no  principles  of  justice 
save  those  which  superior  power  chose  to  recognize. 
But  Rome  levelled  those  tribal  monopolies  of  law  and 
order  to  the  ground.  When  a  true  State  came  in, 
there  entered  a  possibility  of  real  law,  and  therewith 
the  extension  of  the  area  of  rights. 


ii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  55 

So  far  as  racial  genius  is  concerned,  there  is  no 
contrast  more  amazing  than  the  one  between  those 
kindred  people,  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans.  The  • '  ^ 
Romans  had  no  m^iology  of  their  own  worth  speaking  |  \f\*. 
of,^o^cosmogomcnoint!Teogonic  myths.  Their  reli- 
gion was  almost  wholly  cultus.  Sacred  formulae, 
having  the  combined  efficiency  of  an  immutable 
liturgy  and  the  secrets  of  magic,  continued  to  the 
last  to  be  the  official  religion.  They  had  no  songs  at 
prayer,  as  the  Greeks  had.  The  prayer  must  be 
recited  from  memory,  word  for  word,  letter  for  letter. 
They  had  no  epic  of  their  own.  Their  Gods  were 
personified  abstractions  rather  than  persons,  such  as 
silver  the  son  of  copper ;  so  that  they  could  not  marry 
as  the  Greek  Gods  did,  being  destitute  of  all  flesh- 
colored  individuality.  For  a  long  period,  says  Varro, 
they  had  no  images.11  But  all  these  defects  seem  to 
have  been  the  defects  of  a  great  virtue.  No  people 
ever  gave  such  logical  expression  to  the  principle  of 
measure.  Land  was  laid  out  by  the  square,  and  no 
notice  was  taken  of  the  running  streams  that  sought 
to  break  up  the  rigidity  of  the  square.  The  legion 
was  a  most  perfect  union  of  fighting  power  in  the 
individual  with  precision  in  the  clamping  of  individ- 
uals together.  The  camp  was  as  clear  and  regular 
and  unvarying  as  a  proposition  in  the  lower  mathe- 
matics. The  one  God  that  was  original  with  Rome 
was  Janus,  the  God  of  the  beginning  and  the  end. 

This  principle  of  measure  with  its  horror  of  the  un- 
assimilated  and  unregulated  showed  itself  on  a  higher 
level  as  a  sense  for  law.  The  State  at  Rome  was  all  in 
all.  Law  was  logically  before  and  superior  to  religion. 
Theology,  such  as  it  was,  was  not  a  speculation,  but  a 


56  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

branch  of  law.  The  Gods  had  no  address  save  Rome. 
In  all  primitive  societies  the  priest  was  the  centre  of 
the  idealizing  forces  that  enabled  men  to  eternize 
themselves.  In  Greece  his  place  was  taken  by  the 
poet  and  the  philosopher  ;  in  Israel  by  the  prophet. 
But  in  Rome  he  was  mainly  supplanted  by  the  great 
lawyers  who  proudly  called  themselves  "  sacredotes 
juris." 

By  reason  of  commerce  and  war  'there  grew  up  at 
Rome  a  constantly  increasing  number  of  "broken 
men,"  men  wholly  outside  the  sacred  Tribes,  having 
no  grandfather  in  terms  of  the  sacred  genealogies  and 
therefore  having  no  God  in  terms  of  the  patrician  the- 
ology. Between  these  men,  the  disinherited  classes 
or  the  masses  on  the  one  side,  and  the  privileged  and 
prerogatived  men  or  the  patricians  on  the  other,  there 
was  waged  a  party  conflict  that  frequently  threatened 
to  break  into  open  war.  The  result  of  the  conflict 
was  a  true  State  that  slowly  acquired  sovereignty  over 
the  sacred  Tribes,  and  broke  down  one  after  another 
the  privileges  within  which  the  aristocracy  lay  in- 
trenched. The  spirit  of  this  State  gave  itself  to  the 
making  of  a  new  kind  of  law.  The  old  kind  was 
called  fas,  sacred  privilege  more  or  less  monopolized 
by  the  few.  The  new  kind  wasykr,  the  possession  of 
all.  The  constitutional  history  of  Rome  has  its  main 
interest  in  the  unfolding  of  the  properties  of  that  new 
kind  of  law. 

The  logic  of  this  new  law  in  its  bearing  on  our 
subject  was  not  fully  expressed  until  the  Empire  suc- 
ceeded the  City.  The  political  forms  of  the  old  world 
were  now  badly  shaken,  if  they  were  not  altogether 
shattered.  Great  numbers  of  men  who  were  politi- 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  57 

cally  disinherited  drifted  to  Rome.  The  law  had  to 
assimilate  them  under  peril  of  fatal  congestion  in 
the  body  politic.  Then  again,  the  vast  size  of  the 
State  little  by  little  dwarfed  the  aristocrat  until  he 
looked  relatively  far  smaller  in  the  eye  of  the  law. 
An  aristocracy  in  the  narrow  sense  of  antiquity  needs 
a  State  with  snug  boundaries  in  order  to  maintain 
itself.  Where  the  imagination  sweeps  across  a  con- 
tinent as  it  does  in  America,  privilege  and  preroga- 
tive must  needs  look  smaller.  The  genius  of  Rome 
embodied  in  the  Empire  must,  for  its  life,  widen  its 
political  sympathies.  Cicero,  although  he  spoke  be- 
fore the  days  of  the  Empire,  expresses  its  logic  when 
he  said,  "  I  maintain  it  as  a  universal  principle  that 
there  is  no  nation  anywhere  so  hostile  or  disaffected 
to  the  Roman  people,  none  so  united  by  ties  of  faith 
or  friendship,  that  we  are  debarred  from  admitting 
them  to  the  right  of  citizens."  12  "  The  extension  of  the 
franchise  was  the  key-stone  of  the  Roman  system."  13 
The  reasoned  cosmopolitanism  of  Greek  philosophy 
now  gets  the  support  without  which  the  mightiest 
conception  is  unable  to  make  its  fortune,  —  the  support 
of  circumstance.  The  universalism  of  the  greatest 
State  of  antiquity,  yea,  of  all  history,  if  we  judge  it 
by  sweep  and  continuity  of  life  and  variety  of  terri- 
tory, reinforced  cosmopolitanism.  The  time  and  place 
cohered  with  the  idea.  Not  man  as  Greek  or  African 
or  Syrian,  but  man  as  man  had  to  be  the  subject  and 
inspiration  of  the  idealizing  thought  of  the  Empire. 

Thus  Stoicism  and  the  Empire  join  hands.  The 
deepening  sense  of  humanity  penetrates  the  law. 
The  result  is  the  dogma  of  equality.  As  far  as 
natural  law  is  concerned,  all  men  are  equal.14 


58  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Slavery  is  against  Nature,  for  freedom  is  the  birth- 
right of  man.15  Isolated  Greek  thinkers  had  said  this 
many  a  time  before.  But  when  the  law  of  the  world 
affirmed  it  as  a  dogma,  the  effect  was  as  the  discharge 
of  artillery  to  the  firing  of  a  few  skirmishers. 

Along  with  this  legal  authentication  of  the  Stoic  defi- 
nition of  the  universal  man,  went  another  great  achieve- 
ment of  Roman  law,  —  the  transition  from  status  to 
contract.  Once  more  we  see  the  solidarity  between 
universalism  and  individualism.  The  individual  now 
gets  wholly  foot-loose,  acquiring  the  will-making  power 
in  its  absolute  form,  while,  as  a  part  of  the  same  move- 
ment, the  individual  is  universalized.  The  new  State 
which  built  itself  up  on  the  ruins  of  the  tribal  states 
had  to  take  the  individual,  not  the  Tribe,  as  its  unit. 
It  was  also  under  bonds  to  find  the  common  stock  of 
all  its  citizens.  Coin  that  should  be  current  with  the 
men  who  had  grandfathers  and  with  the  men  who 
had  not,  must  be  struck  at  the  public  mint.  The 
imperial  politics  could  thrive  only  by  striking  root 
down  into  the  common  humanity. 

The  result  was  the  splendid  definition  of  Justice 
given  in  the  Institutes :  "  The  steady  and  abiding 
will  to  give  to  each  man  what  belongs  to  him." 16 
The  clear  idea  of  Justice  does  not  appear  until  a  true 
State  is  formed.  For  such  a  State  entails  the  neces- 
sity of  dealing  with  every  man  who  in  any  way  be- 
longs to  the  State,  as  if  he  were  in  some  sense  to 
count  for  one.  Moreover,  where  the  idea  of  Justice 
is  clearly  conceived,  the  idealizing  forces  of  society 
must  have  entered  into  the  law,  even  as  they  are 
doing  with  us  to-day,  after  a  long  and  well-nigh  ex- 
clusive attention  to  the  other  world.  The  definition 


n  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  59 

of  the  Institutes  contained  the  promise  of  a  vast 
extension  of  the  area  of  rights. 

Yet  Rome  with  all  her  greatness  could  not  out- 
grow the  tribal  principle.  I  will  not  speak  here  of 
the  horrors  of  the  circus  and  the  slave  system.  For 
it  may  be  argued  that  they  were  thrust  upon  Rome 
by  the  result  of  her  masterhood  in  the  art  of  war. 
But  above  those  levels,  and  within  the  precincts 
of  a  really  human  conception  of  humanity,  we  find 
something  that  reveals  a  fundamental  fault  in  the 
whole  system.  It  is  the  apotheosis  of  the  Emperors. 
The  process  of  apotheosis  was  something  far  deeper 
than  servility  in  the  subject  conspiring  with  vanity  in 
the  ruler.  It  was  a  necessity  of  the  State.  There 
was  no  means  of  insuring  the  existence  of  the  State 
except  religion.  In  the  worship  of  the  Caesars  the 
Empire  reverenced  its  own  law.  There  was  no  other 
way  in  which  pagan  Rome  could  guarantee  the  gains 
she  had  made  for  civilization.  Yet  the  very  thing 
that  was  necessary  to  her  was  in  logic  her  undoing. 
For  it  was  a  reversion  on  a  vast  scale  to  the  tribal 
religion.  The  solidarity  between  the  deified  Pontifex 
Maximus  and  the  primitive  Priest-King  is  beyond  all 
doubt.  Thus  apotheosis  affirmed  the  aristocratic  prin- 
ciple in  terms  of  the  godhood,  of  that  which  for  the 
thought  of  the  time  if  not  in  fact,  was  deepest  in 
being  and  therefore  ultimate  in  history.  The  worship 
of  the  Emperor  undid  the  definition  of  equality  that 
the  logic  of  the  Empire  demanded. 

Again  apotheosis  violated  the  divine  unity  and 
enacted  polytheism  in  terms  of  organic  law.  But 
the  unity  of  God  is  necessary  to  the  unity  of  hu- 
manity; for  the  idea  of  God  registers  and  clarifies 


60  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  desires  of  men.  So  the  deification  of  the  Em- 
peror undid  that  unity  of  humanity  upon  which  alone 
the  Empire  could  securely  build. 

The  powerlessness  of  heathen  antiquity  to  carry 
out  the  programme  of  individualizing  and  moralizing 
the  downmost  man  is  brought  into  midday  light  by 
the  Stoic  idealization  of  suicide,  which  should  rather 
perhaps  be  called  the  Roman  theory,  inasmuch  as  it 
became  so  essential  a  part  of  the  Roman  phase  of 
Stoicism.  The  Stoic  feeling  was,  as  Leckey  says,, 
"always  near  the  suicide  level."  They  had  a  favor- 
ite saying,  "  If  the  room  is  smoky,  let  us  leave  it," 
—  the  room  being  of  course  society  and  the  State. 
Plainly  this  is  to  give  up  the  fight,  to  declare  that 
life  as  a  whole  is  incapable  of  being  moralized.  And 
if  the  best  men  say  this  about  their  own  lives,  they 
having  the  advantage  of  the  best  religion  and  culture 
of  the  day,  what  is  likely  to  be  their  creed  touching 
the  mass  of  men  ? 

I  hope  that  I  shall  not  wade  too  deep  into  theology. 
But  the  necessity  of  the  subject,  taken  largely,  forces 
me  to  point  out  that  apotheosis,  being  part  and  parcel 
of  polytheism,  is  part  of  the  small  change  of  panthe- 
ism ;  and  that  pantheism,  steadily  viewed,  "  identifies 
the  possible  with  the  actual."17  It  yields  either  no 
margin  or  a  narrow  margin  between  the  is  and  the 
may-be.  At  this  point  in  the  history  of  the  social 
idea  the  significance  of  the  conception  of  God  as  per- 
sonal life  begins  to  appear.  The  Personality  of  God 
means  that  the  thing  which  the  best  men  supremely 
desire,  the  Supreme  Good,  while  it  is  immanent,  in 
other  words  cannot  be  separated  from  the  visible  pro- 
cesses of  life,  is  also  transcendent,  which  means  that 


II  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  6 1 

it  has  in  it  infinitely  more  than  has  yet  been  real- 
ized through  these  processes.  Sociologically  speak- 
ing, it  is  the  deification  of  the  potential.  Great  stores 
of  promise  are  thus  imagined  to  be  lying  in  wait,  back 
of  history,  biding  their  time  to  come  to  the  shores  of 
light. 

Grouped  with  apotheosis  and  suicide  is  the  idea  of 
Fate.  Trendelenbury  affirms  that  it  is  the  dogmatic 
expression  and  justification  of  social  inertia  and  indi- 
vidual indolence.  An  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this 
may  be  found  in  the  greedy  welcome  given  by  the 
upper  classes  in  England  to  the  Malthusian  doc- 
trine. Quite  independently  of  the  question  whether 
the  Malthusian  dogma  is  correct,  it  is  certain  that 
it  was  quickly  capitalized  by  those  who  wished  to 
fend  off  attacks  on  the  existing  constitution  of  society. 
Now  the  premise  in  all  appeals  for  Democracy,  for 
that  kind  of  social  and  governmental  structure  in 
which  the  man  who  works  with  his  hands  really 
counts  for  one,  is  this :  theology,  philosophy,  science, 
ethics,  separately  or  altogether,  must  so  state  the 
relation  between  society  and  the  fundamental  life, 
that  every  part  of  society  shall  be  alive  with  the  hope 
of  the  best  things  for  every  other  part.  Democracy 
must  insist  on  its  own  idea  concerning  the  moral 
capacity  of  the  universe.  Every  social  ideal  levies  a 
certain  contribution  upon  the  stores  of  the  seen  and 
unseen  worlds.  The  democratic  social  ideal  cannot 
be  saved  except  by  faith  in  its  right  to  impose  the 
heaviest  taxes.  But  the  belief  in  Fate,  in  any  form, 
is  the  belief  in  something  that  successfully  and  for- 
ever refuses  to  be  taxed.  Fate  is  just  that  portion 
of  ultimate  being  which  will  not  come  to  any  sort  of 


62  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE      CHAP,  n 

terms  with  men's  desires,  even  though  they  be  the 
deepest  desires  of  the  best  men. 

r     History  cannot  remain  a  moral  process  unless  the 
/    downmost  man   become  individual.     But  this  result 
/      cannot  be  reached,  cannot   even  be  looked  forward 
v,       to  with  hope,  unless  there  is  a  regnant  trust  in  the 
superiority  of  the  future  over  the  present,  a  dominat- 
/     ing  conviction  that  the  possible  underlies  and  over- 
/      laps  the  actual.     It  is  clear  that  Greece  and  Rome 
could  not  preserve  the  capital  they  had  gathered  for 
\      the   emancipation    of  the   laborer.     Pagan  antiquity 
must  go  outside  itself,  to  look  for  another  view  con- 
cerning the  substance,  end,  and  scope  of  history. 


Ill 

DEMOCRACY  and  the  social  question  must  always 
go  together.  The  work  of  Solon,  the  career  of  the 
Gracchi,  above  all,  the  phenomena  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries,  are  sufficient  evidence.  In 
the  democratic  question  the  point  is  the  right  to  gov- 
ern or  the  freedom  of  the  suffrage.  In  the  social 
question  it  is  the  right  to  enjoy,  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the  words,  —  or  freedom  of  opportunity.  It  is 
plain  that  we  are  dealing  with  two  aspects  of  a  single 
movement.  The  difference  is  in  the  means  of  ex- 
pression, not  in  the  principle.  The  debate  over  the 
suffrage  and  the  possibility  of  its  indefinite  extension 
is  concerned  with  the  national  life  only  in  so  far  as  it 
is  organized  into  a  State.  The  social  question  is  con- 
cerned with  the  same  life  as  a  total  that  is  too  large 
and  many-sided  to  be  exhausted  by  any  form  of 
organization.  It  is  also  plain  that,  while  the  social 
life  is  larger  than  the  State,  the  two  must  in  the  long 
run  keep  step  with  one  another.  The  fortune  of 
Democracy  as  a  principle  of  government  is  made  or 
lost  by  its  behavior  as  a  social  principle. 

The  suffrage  means  nothing  when  taken  as  a 
single  act.  It  amounts  to  something  only  when  it 
expresses  a  character.  The  significance  of  the  act 
of  voting  is  that  it  betokens  such  a  character  in  the 

63 


64  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

voter  that  the  State  and  the  society  which  seeks  ex- 
pression through  it  are  able  to  recognize  themselves 
in  him.  For  example,  when  the  right  to  vote  is 
given  to  the  Indian,  it  will  indicate,  if  wisely  given, 
that  he  is  no  longer  outside  the  body  politic,  whether 
as  savage  warrior  or  the  government's  ward,  but 
forms  part  of  the  area  of  citizenhood.  The  ultimate 
question  in  the  debate  over  the  suffrage  is, — How 
far  out  and  down  may  we  hope  to  push  the  qualities 
and  faculties  that  go  to  the  making  of  a  citizen  ? 

The  ground  of  Democracy  is  optimism  touching 
the  masses ;  and  the  things  that  are  believed  to  be 
possible  in  the  case  of  the  average  man  must  bulk 
very  large  if  the  democratic  ideal  is  to  get  and  keep 
a  foothold  in  history.  We  need  not  be  daunted  by 
critical  agnosticism,  when  examining  a  pure  matter 
of  fact.  We  are  studying  a  period  throughout  whose 
whole  extent  it  held  absolutely  true  —  whether  it 
is  always  true  or  not  —  that  need  governs  theory. 
There  was  no  critical  movement  on  foot ;  or,  if 
there  was,  it  had  not  power  enough  to  stand  in  the 
way  and  keep  humanity  from  interpreting  the  unseen 
elements  and  forces  of  the  universe  in  the  light  of 
its  own  desires.  Between  the  dreams  and  plans  of 
that  period  and  the  problems  of  our  own  time  we  are 
seeking  a  connection.  We  may  say  without  fear  of 
contradiction  that  no  view  of  the  State  can  gainsay 
man's  permanent  view  of  the  world ;  and  that  the 
opinions  we  hold  regarding  society  must  draw  their 
sap  from  our  opinions  concerning  life  in  its  totality. 
It  would  raise  a  laugh  to  speak  of  a  democratic 
metaphysic.  Metaphysic  is  as  democratic  as  pure 
mathematics,  and  no  more.  Yet  our  enjoyment  of 


in  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  65 

the  laugh  does  not  impair  the  truth  of  the  proposi- 
tion that  even  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart  about 
the  relation  in  which  he  stands  towards  the  funda- 
mental forces  of  the  universe,  so  is  he  bound  to 
become.  Therefore,  that  deep  desire  of  humanity 
which  expresses  itself  in  the  democratic  ideal  must, 
like  all  great  desires,  after  one  fashion  or  another, 
"prie"  into  "the  interior"  of  things,  unless,  "like 
the  martlet,"  it  would  "build  in  the  weather  on  the 
outward  wall"  of  the  world,  "even  in  the  force  and 
road  of  casualty." 

The  State  is  the  total  human  life  as  organized  in 
time  and  space.  Speaking  of  the  State  as  if  it  were 
a  person,  we  say  that  it  must  desire  to  find  itself  and 
recognize  itself  in  the  lowest  man,  if  the  democratic 
ideal  is  to  be  a  working  ideal  and  not  a  self-confessed 
illusion.  Desire  is  that  function  of  consciousness  in 
which  man  goes  forth  from  himself  upon  objects  not 
yet  attained.  The  object  of  desire  for  the  democratic 
State  is  the  common  man.  His  ideal  capacity  for 
good  is  the  preoccupation  and  thesis  of  Democracy. 
Consequently  the  State,  in  order  to  become  and 
remain  consistently  democratic,  must  conceive  of 
itself  as  being  a  missionary  force  that  sallies  forth 
from  existing  institutions  to  create  citizenhood  in 
men  who  have  never  been  citizens.  It  must  believe 
the  common  man  to  be  capacious  of  all  that  is  best 
in  its  own  eyes ;  and  so,  under  pain  of  disloyalty  to 
itself,  must  seek  to  bring  him  into  close  communion 
with  the  highest  political  and  social  ideals. 

For  example,  let  Boston  be  thought  of  as  truly 
municipal,  supremely  concerned  with  the  wise  man- 
agement of  its  own  estates ;  not  an  aggregation,  on 


66  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  one  side,  of  men  of  business  and  pleasure  who 
house  in  it  for  some  part  of  the  day  and  year,  and, 
on  the  other,  of  a  mass  of  people  who  are  content  if 
both  ends  meet ;  but  a  true  municipality,  the  best 
mind  and  conscience  within  it  gladly  lending  them- 
selves to  the  city  in  order  that  the  community  may 
become  self-conscious  touching  what  is  best  to  do 
and  self-directed  towards  doing  it.  Let  this  real 
municipality  be  also  thought  of  as  truly  democratic. 
The  existence  of  "  slums "  must  then  become  as 
great  a  torture  to  Boston,  as  a  flaw  in  his  accounts 
to  a  fine  and  honorable  accountant.  If  the  mind 
and  conscience  of  the  city  were  aristocratic,  the  slum 
question  might  be  treated  as  if  it  went  no  higher 
than  the  point  of  view  of  the  public  health,  and  the 
motive  for  draining  the  swamp  might  be  nothing 
better  than  a  wish  to  protect  the  well-to-do  from  con- 
tagion. Inasmuch  as  the  consistently  aristocratic 
view  of  things  has  not  bound  itself,  for  its  life,  to 
prove  that  all  men  are  native  to  the  best  things,  the 
existence  of  a  "  slum "  does  not  threaten  to  undo 
its  conception  of  the  universe.  But  a  city,  self- 
consciously democratic,  has  its  whole  creed  at  stake. 
"  Bostonian  "  involves  a  character  which  denies  itself 
unless  it  universalizes  itself.  The  city  must  there- 
fore picture  self  as  going  forth  in  desire  that  cannot 
rest,  until  it  finds  its  characteristics  in  the  lowest 
class  within  the  city  limits. 

Again,  "  America  "  stands  for  a  high  valuation  of 
the  common  man.  The  generation  before  the  war 
believed  with  its  whole  heart  in  manifest  Destiny ; 
meaning  that  Nature  and  God,  singly  and  together, 
would  take  care  of  the  American  ideal.  It  meant 


in  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  6/ 

also  that  Americans  were  under  heavy  bonds  to 
history.  This  however  was  secondary.  The  pri- 
mary thing  was  that  God  and  Nature  had  insured 
America.  For  our  own  generation  the  order  of 
thought  is  changing.  Our  duty  is  becoming  the 
primary  thing  and  the  guarantee  of  God  is  beginning 
to  appear  as  the  standing-ground  of  our  duty.  We 
no  longer  think  of  ourselves,  even  for  a  moment,  as 
a  people  free  from  problems.  On  the  contrary, 
problems  many  and  difficult  press  us  hard.  If  the 
fair  plan  of  our  forefathers  is  not  to  pass  into  the 
limbo  of  worn-out  dreams,  "  America  "  must  come  to 
stand  for  an  impassioned  longing  to  realize  the  demo- 
cratic ideal.  The  old  buoyant  hope  must  remain, 
but  taking  more  and  more  the  form  of  a  missionary 
motive,  impelling  us  to  a  nobler  public  spirit,  a 
greater  capacity  for  municipal  and  national  self- 
sacrifice  than  any  people  before  us  has  known. 
America,  thought  of  as  a  Person,  must  be  thought  of 
as  going  forth  in  desire  to  widen  and  deepen  the 
range  of  citizenhood. 

The  State,  then,  i.e.  the  total  human  life  organ- 
ized under  the  conditions  of  time  and  space,  can 
only  become  and  remain  democratic  by  setting  a 
high  valuation  on  the  average  man  and  registering 
its  valuation  in  terms  of  the  universal  life,  however 
that  universal  life  be  named.  Now  God  is  the  name 
that,  by  common  agreement  in  the  past,  men  gave  to 
the  fundamental  life  conceived  as  one  and  self- 
consistent.  And  the  history  of  the  idea  of  God 
is  the  history  of  opinion  concerning  the  one  univer- 
sal that  underlies  all  particulars.  Therefore  it  is  not 
possible  to  separate  the  question, — How  did  the  men 


68  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

of  the  Empire  think  about  the  State  ?  from  the 
other  question,  —  How  did  they  think  about  God  ? 
The  man  of  our  time  may  conceive  that  he,  for  one, 
is  able  to  get  along  politically  without  a  metapolitic 
that  takes  note  of  God.  If  he  succeeds  even  tempo- 
rarily, he  does  so  by  means  of  the  evolutionary  view 
of  the  universe.  But  in  the  first  place  it  is  the 
extreme  of  presumption  to  affirm  that  evolution  has 
closed  its  accounts  with  the  idea  of  God ;  and  in  the 
second  place  the  men  of  antiquity  did  not  possess 
the  evolutionary  view.  We  are  therefore  forced  to 
take  their  conception  of  God  into  metapolitic  in  order 
to  determine  the  carrying  power  of  their  social  ideal. 

In  looking  about  for  a  thinker  to  represent  the 
theology  that  underlay  the  Empire's  opinions  about 
the  State,  we  need  not  make  long  search.  The 
choice  must  fall  upon  either  Plato  or  Aristotle.  The 
Oriental  religions  that  invaded  the  Mediterranean 
world  to  contend  with  Christianity  for  the  mastery, 
gave  the  Empire  religious  impressionism,  but  con- 
tributed nothing  to  its  thought.  In  Plato  and 
Aristotle  antiquity  cleared  its  mind  in  relation  to 
God,  to  the  utmost  of  its  power.  And  between  Plato 
and  Aristotle  we  need  not  be  delayed.  While  Plato 
will  always  have  the  subtler  charm  and  deeper  pro- 
phetic power  over  souls,  Aristotle  is  the  more  repre- 
sentative of  his  race.  In  him  the  main  lines  of 
approach  to  the  central  problems  more  truly  meet. 
And  just  because  he  is  less  religious  and  prophetic 
than  Plato,  he  covers  the  ground  of  universal  Greek 
expression  better  than  he. 

While  discussing  the  nature  of  the  State  and  in 
order  to  emphasize  the  thought  that  the  men  of  his 


m  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  69 

day  could  not  live  the  higher  life  without  it,  Aristotle 
says  that  man  outside  the  State  is  either  brute  or 
God.18  If  this  stood  by  itself,  it  would  be  unfair 
dealing  to  take  it  as  an  expression  of  his  view  con- 
cerning the  relation  between  God  and  society.  But 
in  the  light  of  his  main  conclusions,  we  do  him  no 
violence  by  so  taking  it.  Of  the  social  character 
of  God  he  has  no  conception.  God  is  the  infinite 
monad,  the  absolute.  While  He  is  the  moveless 
cause  of  motion,  He  is  not  in  the  deepest  sense  crea- 
tive. He  is  defined  as  pure  and  infinite  reason,  as 
a  kind  of  thought  whose  material  is  thought  itself. 
One  of  the  most  precious  parts  of  Aristotle's  system 
is  his  doctrine  of  the  will.  It  is  here  that  he  corrects 
the  intellectualism  of  Plato  and  so  keeps  the  Idea 
closer  to  the  ground.  But  in  his  definition  of  God 
the  doctrine  of  the  will  goes  incurably  lame.  God 
is  will  in  the  most  secondary  sense.  In  essence 
He  is  contemplative  reason.  The  ideal  for  the  sage 
is  leisure  plus  clear  thought.  In  experience  his 
leisure  is  broken  by  practical  necessities  and  cut  off 
short  by  death ;  while,  by  the  necessity  of  the  human 
constitution,  his  reason  is  blurred  by  sensation  that 
cannot  be  wholly  assimilated,  and  well-nigh  over- 
powered by  feelings  that  refuse  the  bridle.  God,  on 
the  contrary,  has  infinite  leisure,  and  the  matter  upon 
which  the  Eternal  Reason  works  is  not  sensation, 
but  reason  itself. 

The  sum  of  the  thing  is  that  Aristotle's  conception 
of  God  is  essentially  Greek,  in  that  it  is  essentially 
aesthetic.  The  Greek  view  of  the  cosmos  is  at 
bottom  static,  not  dynamic.  Aristotle's  analysis  of 
the  functions  of  the  will  in  psychology,  his  theory 


70  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

of  development  in  cosmology,  move  straight  towards 
a  dynamic  view.  Yet  in  no  sense  does  he  reconstruct 
the  fundamental  conception  of  the  universe.  Those 
great  thoughts  about  development  and  the  will  do 
not  indeed  lie  on  the  page  of  his  system,  they  go  too 
deep  for  that.  But  they  do  not  begin  to  go  deep 
enough.  And  when  he  comes  to  the  idea  of  God 
they  altogether  lose  their  footing.  God  is  not  a 
Creator,  but  a  contemplator. 

Aristotle's  idea  of  God  is  consistent  with  his  view 
of  the  State  as  a  whole.  He  does  not  face  the 
problem  of  founding  a  State.  The  men  of  the  early 
times  had  done  that  work.  Nor  does  he  touch  bottom 
in  dealing  with  the  problem  of  perpetuating  the  State, 
in  spite  of  his  deep  discussion  of  government.  The 
men  of  Marathon  had  done  that.  When  he  comes  to 
the  end  of  his  ethics,  he  lets  us  into  his  secret  by 
portraying  a  sage  who  is  in  effect  a  philosophic  monk. 
He  half  surrenders  his  distinction  between  the  prac- 
tical and  the  speculative  virtues,  and  quite  dulls  the 
edge  of  its  final  corrective  value  in  relation  to  Plato's 
intellectualism,  by  making  the  speculative  virtues  sov- 
ereign and  the  practical  virtues  altogether  secondary. 
It  is  no  accident  that  the  mediaeval  scholastics  took 
his  noble  words  hereon  as  the  text  for  their  monastic 
view  of  the  reason.  The  forces  that  found  States 
and  make  history  are  very  imperfectly  accounted  for 
by  Aristotle.  The  core  of  culture  and  worth  as  he 
sees  them  is  a  leisure  that  lives  within  a  house  that 
coarser  hands  have  built,  and  through  its  windows 
"  contemplates  the  universe  with  peace." 

God  is  the  Summum  Bonum,  the  thing  supremely 
to  be  desired.  He  is  not  the  Desirer.  If  now  we 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  71 

take  the  idea  of  God  as  the  pulse  of  deepest  thinking, 
this  way  of  conceiving  Him  can  only  mean  that  the 
philosophic  ethic  of  antiquity  lacked  the  dynamic, 
the  creative,  the  missionary  elements.  That  God, 
the  fundamental  life,  is  not  thought  of  as  a  Desirer, 
not  conceived  as  an  infinite  missionary  force,  plainly 
indicates  that  the  highest  reason  and  conscience  ex- 
isting in  history  are  not  missionary,  do  not  think  of 
themselves  as  standing  in  a  relation  of  creative  desire 
towards  the  masses.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
Church  and  State  were  identical  in  those  days.  Hence 
the  significance  of  this  flaw  in  the  idea  of  God  is  far 
greater  than  it  would  be  to-day,  when,  thanks  to  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State,  much  bad  theology 
may  be  current  for  some  time  within  the  bounds  of 
the  Church,  without  breaking  into  the  precincts  of 
the  State.  Where  there  was  a  single  society,  a  flaw 
in  the  idea  of  God  was  more  portentous.  Consequently 
it  is  of  the  deepest  significance  that  God,  as  Aristotle 
conceives  Him,  does  not  create,  does  not  bring  up 
the  ought-to-be  out  of  the  deep  of  the  unknown.  He 
contemplates  the  is.  The  existing  order  of  things  is 
the  substantial  order.  The  potential  has  little  or  no 
margin  beyond  the  actual. 

So  long  as  this  is  the  case  the  democratic  ideal,  in 
whose  history  the  social  question  is  an  inevitable  cli- 
max, is  partly  based  on  stubble.  The  democratic 
State,  so-called,  is  an  aristocratic  Democracy.  It  is 
largely  a  society  for  the  insurance  of  existing  rights, 
not  for  the  creation  of  new  ones. 

Herein  is  found  the  mighty  difference  between 
metaphysical  and  prophetical  monotheism.  The  phil- 
osophic monotheism  of  Greece  looks  away  from  his- 


72  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

tory  and  society.  The  will  is  confined  to  the  lower 
virtues.  The  intellectual  love  of  God,  quietistic  in 
tendency  and  making  towards  some  theory  of  ecstasy, 
is  the  goal.  This  comes  out  clearly  in  Neoplatonic 
mysticism.  The  logical  conclusion  of  the  process 
would  be  an  Occidental  Brahmanism.  For  Brahm  is 
the  flight  from  the  world,  personified.19  The  world 
as  such  —  the  world  as  it  lies  in  time  and  space  — 
has  no  real,  no  spiritual  being,  it  is  an  illusion.  His- 
tory is  not  the  stuff  of  a  permanent  will,  and  so  can- 
not be  permanently  stuff  for  the  conscience.  But 
for  prophetical  monotheism  history  is  not  thought 
away ;  it  is  put  in  the  hand  of  a  Holy  Will,  and  thus 
becomes  the  abiding  material  of  conduct.  It  is  the 
function  of  all  monotheism  to  deliver  man  from  the 
primitive  theology  that  put  the  Gods  in  the  service  of 
the  world,  and  thus  make  it  possible  to  put  the  world 
in  the  service  of  God.  And  since  God  is  never  con- 
sidered as  one,  in  the  deepest  sense,  without  being 
also  considered  steward  and  guardian  of  the  non- 
material,  the  spiritual  values  of  society,  to  put  the 
world  in  the  service  of  God  is  equivalent  to  making  it 
plastic  to  the  moral  ideal.  All  monotheism  does  this  so 
far  as  intention  goes.  But  only  Biblical  monotheism 
does  it  with  success.  The  God  of  the  Bible  is  not,  as 
with  Aristotle,  contemplative  reason ;  nor  is  He,  as 
with  Brahmanism,  personified  monastic  meditation. 
He  is  conceived  as  holy,  as  free  from  and  sovereign 
over  Nature.  There  are  no  dark  and  hidden  elements 
in  Him.  He  knows  Himself  completely.  He  has 
all  the  powers  of  the  universe  in  His  hand.  And  he 
makes  Himself  known  in  no  character  save  that  of 
creator. 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  73 

Psychologically  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  of  crea- 
tion is  in  closest  connection  with  an  impassioned  criti- 
cism of  the  world's  system  of  measurements  and  the 
world's  standard  of  values.  The  Exodus  was  a  pro- 
test against  the  heathen  theology.  It  was  equally  a 
protest  against  the  heathen  sociology.  The  clear 
space  of  attested  Old  Testament  history  stretches  from 
the  founding  of  the  State  by  Moses  to  the  death  of 
the  State  and  the  birth  of  the  Church  in  the  Exile. 
In  terms  of  pure  theology,  the  heart  of  this  period 
is  the  development  of  the  unitary  idea  of  God.  But 
theology  is  no  more  a  vestal  virgin  than  philosophy. 
Both  are  married  to  the  working  necessities  of  man- 
kind. The  process  by  which  this  monotheistic  idea 
was  given  to  men  was  worked  out  through  the  use 
and  growth  of  a  new  type  of  statesmen,  —  the 
prophets.  Statesmen  they  were  in  the  deepest  sense. 
The  unity  of  their  feeling  and  thought  was  not  the 
individual,  but  the  nation.  The  object  to  which  all 
their  desires  went  out  was  the  regeneration  of  the 
nation.  They  were  not,  like  the  priests,  stewards  of 
an  inherited  capital,  discharging  a  fixed  constitutional 
function.  They  might  be  chosen  from  any  rank. 
In  some  cases  they  were  literally  men  of  the  people. 
Amos  is  an  example.  In  all  cases  they  were  men  for 
the  people.  They  faced  the  aristocracy  and  the  mon- 
archy with  equal  fearlessness.  They  were  irrepres- 
sible Protestants  against  the  existing  state  of  society  ; 
believing  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  spiritual  process, 
forever  attacking  the  society  of  their  times  and  hold- 
ing up  the  picture  of  a  perfect  society.  They  were 
great  historic  individuals,  who  could  not  shut  them- 
selves up  within  the  established  order. 


74  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

The  very  mention  of  divine  election  to-day  makes 
us  shy  like  a  colt  at  a  bear.  But  the  Old  Testament 
doctrine  of  election  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  pro- 
phetic refusal  to  eternize  the  existing  social  order. 
In  the  case  of  the  individual  it  is  illustrated  by 
Jeremiah.  He  was  convinced  that  the  work  which 
made  his  life  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  politicians 
and  a  burden  to  himself  had  its  root  in  the  will  of 
God.  God  had  separated  him  from  the  crowd  for 
the  work,  and  had  set  him  up  as  the  public  con- 
science of  Israel.  In  the  case  of  the  people,  it  is 
grandly  illustrated  by  the  divine  choice  of  Israel. 
For  Israel  is  God's  people  not  by  nature  but  by 
grace.  The  heathen  people  and  its  god  were  part- 
ners by  nature,  bone  of  one  bone,  flesh  of  one  flesh. 
Before  time  began,  they  were  wedded  to  each  other. 
Israel,  on  the  contrary,  had  a  definite  beginning  in 
time.  The  national  existence  hung  on  God's  free 
and  sovereign  deed;  and  this  sovereignty  of  God, 
just  as  it  made  God  the  free  creator  of  Israel's 
being,  so  did  it  make  Him  the  unsleeping  critic  of 
Israel's  political  and  social  habits. 

In  this  way,  that  which  was  involved  by  the  Greek 
doctrine  of  "Nature,"  namely,  a  critical  attitude 
towards  the  positive  or  the  apparent  social  order, 
becomes  a  vastly  more  deep-laid  as  well  as  more 
aggressive  programme  of  social  reform.  Compare 
Hesiod  and  Homer,  as  ancestors  of  the  conscience, 
with  Moses.  In  the  case  of  the  former,  although 
the  animal  may  not,  as  in  Egypt,  masque  and  con- 
fuse the  personal,  yet  the  ground  is  littered  and 
cumbered  with  myths.  Beneath  the  things  that  do 
appear,  and  even  close  to  the  surface,  are  dark  nature- 


in  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  75 

processes  that  refuse  to  be  translated  into  the  lan- 
guage of  human  hope.  There  is  no  thoroughfare 
from  the  bottom  of  being  to  the  working  conscience. 
But  in  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  concerning  crea- 
tion and  its  correlative  doctrine  concerning  Nature  as 
lying  in  the  hand  of  a  personal  will,  the  very  root 
and  reason  of  the  universe  is  thought  of  as  the  source 
of  the  vitalizing  forces  that  work  for  the  betterment 
of  the  lowly.  Without  wading  into  metaphysics,  we 
can  affirm  it  as  a  matter  of  history,  that  the  Personal- 
ity of  God  as  conceived  in  Israel  meant,  when  com- 
pared with  the  ideas  of  God  entertained  by  the  other 
peoples  of  antiquity,  a  belief  in  the  maximum  of  possi- 
bilities in  the  line  of  personal  and  social  good.  Thus 
the  potential  acquired  indefinite,  for  practical  pur- 
poses infinite,  margins  outlying  beyond  the  actual. 
Hence  the  belief  drew  after  it  a  belief  in  the  maxi- 
mum of  personal  and  social  responsibility  and  activ- 
ity. When  we  sincerely  believe  in  the  possibility 
of  a  thing,  take  it  home  to  the  heart,  it  blows  the 
trumpet  in  our  Zion.  We  are  on  fire  to  realize  it. 
So  the  Old  Testament  dogma  about  the  creative  per- 
sonality of  God  involved  the  sovereignty  of  the  ougJit- 
to-be  over  the  is. 

With  the  unity  of  God  goes  the  deepening  of  self- 
consciousness.  The  result  in  ethics  is  analogous  to 
the  results  of  the  discovery  of  unity  in  all  natural 
law.  Science  has  brought  the  far-off  very  near. 
However  deep  may  be  the  wounds  temporarily  in- 
flicted upon  the  inner  life,  in  the  end  the  effect  must 
be  to  dignify  it,  seeing  that  the  unity  of  law  neces- 
sitates the  conviction  that  self-consciousness  is  not  a 
bastard,  but  the  legitimate  heir  of  the  cosmos.  Even 


76  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

so  does  monotheism  deepen  self-consciousness,  by  first 
unifying  the  ideal  goods  of  the  race,  and  then  mak- 
ing them  all  kith  and  kin  to  the  man  who  believes 
that  only  the  best  can  be  good  at  all.  Polytheism 
weakens  and  dissipates  the  consciousness  of  com- 
munity between  the  highest  good  and  the  seeker 
after  goodness.  Monotheism  concentrates  and  inten- 
sifies it.  This  holds  true  in  the  history  of  every  form 
of  monotheism ;  it  is  as  true  in  Egypt  and  India  and 
Hellas  as  in  Palestine.  There  is  however  a  notable 
difference  between  the  course  of  monotheism  in  these 
lands  and  its  course  in  Israel.  Everywhere  save  in 
Palestine  monotheism  was  reached  by  a  reason  that 
held  itself  more  and  more  aloof  from  the  out-of-door 
world.  It  was  the  crown  of  a  theoretical  process, 
not  of  a  great  practical  experience.  The  result  was 
that  in  those  countries  the  unity  of  God  undid  the 
will  that  had  gone  into  the  conduct  of  affairs.  But 
in  Israel  the  unity  of  God  strengthened  the  will. 
This  comes  out  in  the  sense  of  sin  that  is  so  funda- 
mental in  the  prophetic  economy.  There  was  no 
doctrine  of  sin  in  esoteric  heathenism.  Sin  was 
gotten  rid  of  either  by  intellectualism  as  in  Greece, 
or  by  a  mystical  theory  of  illusion  as  in  India.  The 
deliverance  from  the  doctrine  was  dearly  bought. 
The  price  paid  was  the  swallowing  up  of  the  practi- 
cal reason  in  the  theoretic  reason. 

Monotheism  in  Israel  ran  no  such  course.  The 
sense  of  sin  kept  growing  deeper.  It  was  related  to 
the  conception  of  God  as  a  creative,  redeeming,  and 
reforming  will.  Man  as  organ  of  that  will  finds 
himself  set  firm  and  fast  in  the  visible  order  of 
things.  The  deepening  self-consciousness  that  re- 


in  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  77 

suits  from  monotheism  does  not  dissolve  his  con- 
nections with  history,  but  strengthens  them.  He 
becomes  not  a  quietist,  but  a  Puritan. 

Herodotus,  praising  the  conduct  of  Athens  in  the 
Persian  war,  says  that  her  grand  efficiency  proved 
liberty  to  be  a  forceful  and  forth-putting  thing.  In  the 
light  of  his  immortal  story  this  applies  to  the  Greeks 
as  a  whole  in  contrast  with  the  Orientals.  Freedom 
meant  greater  capacity  for  work.  The  free  Greek 
could  outlast  the  Oriental  in  public  spirit,  outbid  him 
in  the  expenditure  of  self.  To  view  the  world  as  a 
school  of  Freedom  plainly  meant  to  assess  the  re- 
sources it  offered  to  human  betterment  at  a  very 
high  figure.  The  Greek  conception  of  life  got  larger 
values  out  of  the  universe  than  the  Oriental.  Now 
the  men  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  prophets,  far  out- 
went even  the  Greek  in  sociologic  assessment.  They 
had  no  cosmogony,  far  less  a  theogony.  The  philo- 
sophic Greek  conceived  the  process  of  Nature  as 
toilsome  and  not  always  direct  or  free  from  waste. 
Even  the  Gods  had  to  be  improved  on,  and  the  old 
Gods  contended  with  the  new  for  the  right  to  exist. 
The  view  of  the  universe  that  succeeded  this  theogony 
laid  the  foundations  of  modern  science,  and  if  a  scien- 
tist were  speaking  at  this  point,  he  might  balance  the 
books  between  the  Greek  and  the  men  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  a  way  very  unlike  my  own.  But  it  is 
the  genesis  of  the  reform  movement  in  sociology  that 
we  are  studying.  And  under  this  aspect  the  vastly 
greater  significance  of  the  Old  Testament  is  beyond 
doubt. 

Aristotle,  who  summed  up  Greek  experience  down 
to  his  time  on  the  philosophic  and  scientific  side, 


/8  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

also  hit  the  very  centre  of  it  on  the  ethical  side  when 
he  formulated  his  theory  of  the  riddle,  the  so-called 
Golden  Mean.  Ethic  here  made  large  concessions  to 
prudence,  and  allowed  the  practicable  to  carry  through 
some  serious  amendments  to  the  ideal  constitution 
of  society.  But  the  prophet  of  the  Old  Testament 
would  not  listen  to  the  first  word  about  the  practi- 
cable. Long  after  the  exile,  when  the  last  of  the 
prophets  had  been  dead  for  two  hundred  years,  the 
thought  of  the  practicable  gained  a  wide  place  in 
Judaism,  in  the  so-called  Wisdom  Literature.  But 
the  Prophet  did  not  know  it.  In  the  story  of  Genesis, 
the  world  with  all  its  order  is  a  deed  of  divine  free- 
dom. God  has  but  to  speak  —  Let  there  be  light, 
and  light  is.  This  self-same  creative  freedom 
watches  forever  over  the  sacred  history.  No  real 
or  lasting  power  of  resistance  is  conceded  to  environ- 
ment. Yea,  the  very  environment  is  a  deed  of  divine 
freedom.  There  is  no  middle  here,  only  prophetic 
devotion  to  the  absolutely  best.  Anything  short  of 
this  is  idolatry,  a  worship  of  an  unreal  and  empty 
God  and  good.  Is  it  not  plain  then  that  the  man  of 
the  Old  Testament  assessed  the  resources  offered  by 
the  union  for  social  betterment  at  a  vastly  higher 
figure  than  the  Greek  ?  The  doctrine  of  the  freedom 
of  God  permanently  guarantees  the  freedom  of  man 
in  society.  Now  the  belief  in  social  freedom  means 
just  the  conviction  that  there's  something  better  than 
society's  best.  The  ideal  holds  the  whip.  Rest  in 
the  actual  is  only  temporary.  The  constitution  is 
not  fixed,  but  plastic.  Thus  the  principle  of  progress 
strikes  its  root  as  deep  as  the  very  being  of  God. 
And  so  God,  the  fundamental  life,  is  conceived  as 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  79 

in  deed  and  in  truth  the  thing  supremely  to  be  de- 
sired, the  Summun  Bonum,  but  that  is  not  the 
deepest  thought  about  Him.  Primarily  He  is  the 
Djsirer.  That  is  what  the  doctrine  of  God  as  free 
and  creative,  in  relation  to  our  subject,  comes  to. 
We  are  presented  with  an  out-and-out  dynamic  view 
of  the  universe.  The  master-word  is  not  philosophy, 
the  search  of  man  after  Truth,  but  Revelation,  the 
search  of  Truth  after  man.  The  deepest  life  of  God 
is  in  motion  towards  history.  God  is  an  infinite  mis- 
sionary force.  His  entire  purpose  is  bound  up  in 
the  moralization  of  man.  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image,  after  our  likeness  "  is  the  motive ;  "  Be  ye  holy, 
for  I  am  holy  "  is  the  goal. 

It  may  easily  be  said  that  Levitical  virtues  are 
mixed  up  in  the  centre  of  this  thought  with  perma- 
nent virtues.  Practically  however  the  force  of  the 
objection  is  much  weakened  by  the  fact  that  even 
to-day  people  who  profess  to  believe  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  make  much  of  the  mere  externals 
of  life,  and  by  means  of  them  classify  men;  while 
theoretically  the  objection  quite  misses  the  point,  see- 
ing that  nobody  denies  evolution  in  morals.  Morals 
undoubtedly  change.  There  is  none  the  less  a  stable 
core,  and  no  matter  how  widely  one  period  differs 
from  another  in  the  phenomena  of  ethics,  especially 
in  the  etiquette  of  morality,  they  are  still  one  at  heart. 
The  single  permanent  ethical  element  is  devotion  to 
the  best  we  know.  This  is  the  living  and  energizing 
cause  in  morality.  The  effects,  what  we  call  morals, 
change  when  the  cause  plays  upon  a  different  set  of 
conditions.  Hence  a  saying  like  "  Be  ye  holy,  for  I 
am  holy  "  is  not  to  be  criticised  for  its  setting,  but 


80  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

estimated  by  its  heart.  The  heart  of  it  is  that  the 
standard  for  human  perfection  is  the  character  of 
God.  Therefore  the  saying  is  one  in  kind  with 
Christ's  "  Be  ye  perfect  even  as  your  Father  which  is 
in  heaven  is  perfect."  The  goal  of  God's  self-reve- 
lation is  an  intimacy  between  man  and  the  highest 
good.  Nor  is  it  one  class  of  men  who  are  thus  to  be 
brought  within  the  precincts  of  the  best.  The  pro- 
phetic thought  does  indeed,  for  the  most  part,  confine 
itself  to  Israel.  But  inside  the  nation  all  men  are 
within  the  horizon.  Joel  is  representative  when  he 
says  "  I  will  pour  out  my  spirit  upon  all  flesh  ;  .  .  . 
also  upon  the  servants  and  upon  the  handmaids  in 
those  days  will  I  pour  out  my  spirit"  (ii.  28  f.).  And 
this  is  St.  Peter's  text  for  the  sermon  on  Whitsunday. 
In  logic  there  is  no  difference  between  the  two. 
The  latter  is  the  unfolding  of  the  former.  God  is 
conceived  as  an  infinite  missionary  force.  The  divine 
perfection  is  the  pledge  of  human  perfectibility. 

It  should  be  easy  to  see,  from  what  has  been  said, 
that  the  Messianic  idea  and  the  monotheistic  idea,  as 
the  prophets  conceived  them,  are  inseparable ;  that 
they  are  related  as  the  seen  and  the  unseen  aspects 
of  a  single  moment,  as  the  outer  and  inner  side  of 
one  process.  The  whole  nature  of  God,  when  con- 
ceived in  this  dynamic  way,  is  plainly  under  bonds 
to  itself  to  press  the  cause  of  humanity  home.  From 
this  results  the  out-and-out  teleologic  character  of 
Old  Testament  religion.  Schleiemacher  spoke  truth 
when  he  made  this  a  fundamental  note  in  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  and  contrasted  it  with  the  aesthetic  re- 
ligion of  the  Greeks.  In  modern  times  there  has  been 
a  righteous  reaction  against  the  abuse  of  teleology. 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  8 1 

Spinoza's  sweeping  indictment  of  final  causes  was 
fully  deserved  by  a  system  that  often  dignified  old 
woman's  knowledge  with  the  name  of  theology  and 
covered  up  intellectual  laziness  with  infallibility.  But 
Spinoza  sweeps  out  the  jewel  with  the  dust.  Reli- 
gion, as  a  social  force,  is  necessarily  teleologic.  The 
more  thoroughly  social  it  becomes,  the  more  com- 
pletely teleologic  must  it  be. 

The  teleologic  view  of  things  when  grounded  by 
religion  in  the  being  of  God,  conceived  as  personal, 
means,  first  of  all,  that  the  universe  can  be  endlessly 
made  use  of ;  that  the  practical  reason  can  assess 
it  without  stint  in  the  service  of  the  social  ideal. 
There  is  no  dark  nature-force  that  constitutes  a  no- 
man's  land  for  the  reformer's  conscience.  There  is 
no  fate  in  God.  He  is  wholly  intelligible  to  Himself, 
and  therefore  everything  in  Him  is  spiritual  capital 
for  the  social  process.  To  conceive  life  as  Personal 
means  to  conceive  it  as  understood  by  itself  and  so 
translatable.  Science  rests  on  belief  in  the  intelli- 
gibleness  of  Nature.  To  this  reduce  the  unity  of 
law,  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  the  persistence 
of  force.  True  society,  permanent  society,  —  which 
means  a  society  wherein  the  best  men  can  always 
find  themselves,  because  the  highest  ideal  goods  are 
stored  in  it,  a  society  wherefrom  men  shall  not  need 
to  abscond  into  monasticism  in  order  to  be  true  to 
their  best  selves,  —  rests  in  like  manner  on  the  intelli- 
gibleness  of  God.  Without  this  it  must  dwindle  and 
pine  away.  Underlaid  by  any  other  conception,  the 
roots  of  the  relations  that  interknit  to  make  society 
must  inevitably  dry  up  because  they  lack  depth  of 
earth. 


82  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

The  out-and-out  teleologic  view  of  things  means, 
in  the  second  place,  that  a  divine  purpose  hides 
within  the  social  present ;  that  the  purpose  is  larger 
than  the  vessel  that  tries  to  contain  it  and  bound  it ; 
and  that  the  good  of  to-day  must  be  forever  outgoing 
itself  and  opening  into  a  richer  to-morrow,  if  it  would 
not  be  disloyal  to  the  soul  within  it.  Just  as  in 
Schiller's  "Song of  the  Bell,"  so  here,  the  mould  must 
gladly  break  in  order  that  the  purpose  within  it  may 
reach  its  end.  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  see  how 
Israel's  incapacity  for  art  is  the  defect  of  a  great 
virtue.  The  prohibition  of  images  as  an  aid  to  wor- 
ship, which  was  fatal  to  the  possibility  of  art  under 
the  conditions  of  antiquity,  gets  its  ethical  and  social 
meaning  when  we  compare  Israel  with  Egypt.  The 
worship  of  Nature,  the  identification  of  the  Gods  with 
animal  forces,  meant  that  there  was  no  gap,  anyway 
no  great  gap,  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen 
worlds.  The  prohibition  of  images,  on  the  contrary, 
went  along  with  a  conception  of  the  holiness  of  God 
that  dug  a  great  gulf  between  the  two  worlds.  If  we 
do  but  remember  that  the  two  worlds  in  the  Old 
Testament  are  not  the  earth  on  one  side  and  a  tran- 
scendent heaven  on  the  other,  but  that  the  other 
world  is  just  a  storehouse  of  possibilities  which  shall 
some  day  enter  history  with  reforming  power,  we 
should  be  able  to  see  that  the  aesthetic  incapacity  of 
Israel  was  a  defect  attendant  on  vast  moral  serious- 
ness. To  prohibit  images  was  to  declare  that  the 
unseen  and  holy  Will,  at  work  in  sacred  history  for 
the  perfecting  of  society,  could  come  within  no  visible 
form.  To  refuse  to  worship  the  visible  was  to  set 
the  future  free. 


Ill  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  83 

Old  Testament  religion  is  a  religion  of  redemption. 
It  assumes  and  persists  in  an  aggressively  hopeful 
attitude  towards  the  life  of  the  people.  Thus  taken, 
a  single  glance  enables  us  to  see  that  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  democratic  view  of  things, 
however  they  differ  as  to  ways  and  means,  however 
widely  they  may  be  separated  in  their  pictures  of 
the  last  things,  do  yet  in  fact  have  the  same  sky-line. 
Both  believe  in  human  perfectibility  and  their  belief 
is  impassioned.  Democracy  stakes  all  upon  the  possi- 
bility of  carrying  individuality  to  the  outmost  edge  of 
society.  The  Old  Testament  stakes  its  idea  of  God 
on  the  possibility  of  making  the  commonest  Israelite 
a  native  within  the  things  of  eternity.  As  Isabella 
pledged  her  crown  jewels  for  the  discovery  of  the 
new  way  to  the  East,  so  God  pledges  His  holiness  in 
order  that  all  may  know  Him,  from  the  least  even 
to  the  greatest.  The  all-holy  one  has  created  man. 
The  creation  is  a  common  creation.  There  is  no 
possibility  of  such  a  myth  as  that  in  India,  according 
to  which  one  class  of  men  is  created  from  the  head 
of  a  God,  and  another  from  his  feet.  Society  is  not 
stratified,  but  is  of  one  piece  from  top  to  bottom. 

The  proof  of  this  is  found  in  the  popularization  of 
monotheism.     In  no  people  save  Israel  was  so  much  / 
as  an  attempt  made  to  render  the  unitary  idea  of  j 
God  the  people's  property.     Wherever  the  idea  was  ' 
achieved,  it  remained  esoteric  knowledge,  knowledge 
that  did  not  circulate  outside  the  inner  circle  of  the 
educated  and  speculative.     The  metaphysical  mono-  ] 
theism  of  Greece  was  for  the  most  part  a  splendid  / 
spirit  that  spoke  only  to  scholars.     Therefore  the  at-  ' 
tempt  to  popularize  monotheism  was  in  itself  a  grand 


84  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

act  of  faith, — faith  in  the  sovereign  value  of  the  idea 
itself,  faith  also  in  the  spiritual  capacity  of  the  com- 
mon man.  As  plainly  as  human  thoughts  can  ex- 
press anything,  did  this  undertaking  proclaim  an 
absolute  conviction  that  the  lowest  classes  were  level 
to  the  highest  knowledge,  and  that  the  constitution 
of  our  common  humanity  called  for  no  mysteries  that 
should  be  the  prerogative  of  the  few.  And  so  the 
success  that  crowned  the  attempt  to  popularize  mon- 
otheism was  one  of  the  great  steps  taken  by  history 
towards  Democracy.  For  the  unity  of  God  draws 
after  it  the  unity  of  the  race  and  the  unity  of  society. 
The  logic  of  monotheism  limps  unless  it  brings  up 
at  last  on  the  conception  of  a  nation,  a  church,  a 
humanity,  within  whose  pale  there  are  no  distinctions 
save  temporary  and  economic  ones.  The  caste  prin- 
ciple has  no  foothold  anywhere  within  it. 

The  monotheistic  idea  of  God,  as  the  prophets 
conceived  it,  entailed  an  impassioned  belief  in  human 
equality.  Compare  the  Old  Testament  with  Plato. 
The  sacred  nation  of  prophetic  thought  was  in  truth 
provincial.  Beyond  the  frontiers  of  this  one  people 
the  best  things,  for  the  most  part,  did  not  travel. 
Plato  also  was  by  reason  of  his  exaltation  of  his  own 
race  provincial,  quite  as  provincial  as  the  prophets. 
But  compare  them  as  their  thought  and  plan  holds 
good  over  the  territory  they  try  to  cover.  Within 
Plato's  commonwealth,  while  there  are  no  castes  in 
the  technical  sense,  yet  there  are  lines  of  separation 
drawn  so  clearly  and  with  so  much  suggestion  of 
permanence,  that  we  are  led  into  a  thoroughgoing 
aristocratic  view  of  things.  But  in  the  prophetic 
commonwealth  all  distinctions  are  removed.  There's 


in  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  85 

one  God,  one  good,  for  all  men.  One  capacity  for 
receiving  the  good  is  ascribed  to  them  all.  Aggres- 
sive universalism  inheres  in  prophetic  monotheism. 
In  it  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Brotherhood  of 
men,  are  implicit. 

Moreover  Old  Testament  theology  is  not  a  scho- 
lastic theology,  it  never  smells  of  the  lamp,  but  is 
close  to  the  market-place  and  enters  without  effort 
into  politics.  Theology,  as  we  know  it,  has  been 
thought  out  and  systematized  in  places  intellectu- 
ally remote  from  burning  practical  issues.  The  think- 
ing of  the  prophets  was  done  in  a  very  different 
fashion.  They  were  deep  in  the  most  practical  ques- 
tions of  their  day.  Consequently  a  translation  into 
economics  was  always  close  at  hand.  This  is  shown 
in  the  teaching  about  covetousness.  Since  there  is 
but  one  God  and  He  the  Creator,  the  whole  land  be- 
longs to  Him  and  to  Him  alone.  Therefore  earth- 
hunger  is  a  sin  not  only  against  the  unity  of  society 
but  also  against  the  unity  of  God.  The  primal  sin  is 
idolatry  or  denial  of  the  monarchy  of  God.  Out  of  it 
as  an  unseen  root  grow  two  cardinal  sins,  —  adultery 
and  covetousness.  That  they  should  be  treated  as  if 
on  anything  like  a  level  goes  quite  against  the  grain 
of  modern  feeling.  Yet  they  are  practically  level 
with  each  other  before  the  prophet's  eye.  They  are 
thought  to  be  equally  deadly  in  their  results,  since 
the  one  shatters  the  unity  of  the  family,  and  the 
other  shatters  the  unity  of  the  commonwealth.  The 
New  Testament  estimate  of  covetousness  is  abso- 
lutely, though  not  relatively,  the  same.  "  No  covet- 
ous man,  who  is  an  idolater,  hath  a  share  in  the 
kingdom  of  the  Christ  and  of  God"  (Eph.  v.  5). 


86  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

"The  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil"  (i  Tim. 
vi.  10).  Upon  other  sins  falls  an  emphasis  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  So  there  is  a 
difference  of  perspective.  But  the  quality  of  the  as- 
sessment is  identical.  Covetousness  is  the  self-same 
denial  of  monotheism,  the  exaltation  of  the  creature 
above  the  Creator.  Theology  dominates  economics. 
There  is  no  haggling  with  a  commercial  view  of 
things.  All  matters  are  taken  into  the  light  of  an 
absolute  and  uncompromising  ideal. 

The  idea  of  justice  has  the  self-same  color  of  abso- 
luteness. In  the  first  place,  the  individual  does  not 
exist  apart  from  the  nation,  and  consequently  there 
are  no  barriers  against  the  attempt  to  immediately 
translate  the  individual's  conscience  into  public  law. 
Then  again  there  is  no  heaven  for  feeling  to  take 
refuge  in.  The  righteousness  of  the  individual  is 
inseparable  from  the  righteousness  of  the  people. 
The  impassioned  longing  for  personal  holiness  joins 
with  intense  patriotism,  and  the  allied  forces  dash 
resistlessly  against  the  politician's  emphasis  upon 
caution  and  worldly  wisdom.  Kenan's  History  of 
Israel  has  great  value  in  this  connection.  As  an  ob- 
jective history  it  fails.  But  as  a  book  written  with 
intense  subjectivity,  and  written  by  a  Frenchman 
who  cannot,  for  the  life  of  him,  help  seeing  universal 
history  in  the  light  of  the  French  Revolution,  it  is 
profoundly  instructive.  The  highway  of  ideas  runs 
plain  from  Isaiah  to  1/89.  Renan  somewhere  says 
that  the  permanent  antithesis  of  higher  experience  is 
between  the  man  of  culture  and  the  moral  agitator. 
The  former  thinks  that  the  Graces  cannot  be  success- 
fully worshipped  save  in  a  temple  whose  mudsill  is  a 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  8/ 

submerged  twentieth.  He  acknowledges  with  sorrow 
that  it  is  a  heavy  price  to  pay,  but  the  Graces  are 
worth  it.  The  reformer,  on  the  contrary,  demands 
absolute  justice;  and  if  culture  is  unable  to  keep 
house  with  it,  he  cries,  —  Let  culture  perish  !  Now 
it  is  plain  that  the  Old  Testament  is  not  the  book  of 
the  culturist.  Rather  is  it  the  text-book  of  a  Puritan 
Democracy.  The  idea  of  justice  sweeps  all  before 
it.  Expedience  is  brushed  aside.  The  artistic  sense, 
if  it  resists  for  a  moment,  is  put  down.  The  prophets 
could  not  be  on  good  terms  with  the  ancient  Jewish 
State.  The  burning  ideal  of  a  perfect  law  carried  them 
to  positions  which  the  king  and  the  courtiers  might 
well  think  involved  high  treason  and  disloyalty  to 
the  fatherland.  Long  before  the  Assyrian  and  Baby- 
lonian annihilated  the  visible  Jewish  State,  the  un- 
faltering logic  of  prophetism  had  taken  the  soul  of 
meaning  out  of  it  and  left  it  standing,  as  a  hollow 
shell,  before  the  piercing  eye  of  conscience. 

This  is  not  however  the  result  of  pessimism,  but  of 
the  stanchest  optimism.  The  prophet  gives  up  the 
apparent  Israel  because  he  is  sure  of  the  ideal  Israel. 
The  present  State,  with  its  awful  imperfections,  loses 
its  moral  significance,  because  the  future  and  perfect 
State  fills  his  eye.  The  perfection  of  God  draws 
after  it  the  perfectibility  of  man.  The  idea  of  God 
as  one  and  holy  must  be  unravelled  before  this  plan 
of  a  perfect  community  can  be  given  up.  Therefore, 
in  most  striking  contrast  with  the  Stoic  doctrine  of 
Last  Things,  stands  the  Old  Testament  view.  Pro- 
phetic thought,  as  it  faced  the  problem  of  evil,  found 
closed  against  it  three  ways  that  offered  retreat  to 
the  Greek  or  Hindoo.  First,  the  aggressive  mono- 


88  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

theist  was  necessarily  a  radical  monist,  so  that  he 
could  not  get  rid  of  evil  by  a  more  or  less  dualistic 
version  of  matter ;  for  this  would  have  been  to  undo 
his  dominant  thought.  There  could  not  be  for  him 
any  such  thing  as  inherent  evil.  Again,  he  could  not 
take  the  road  of  the  Hindoo  theosophist  and  rate 
matter  and  its  inherent  evil  as  an  illusion  ;  for  this 
would  have  undone  his  definition  of  God  and  man 
laid  down  in  terms  of  will.  And  finally,  he  could  not 
take  the  speculative  aesthetic  way,  thus  reaching  a 
view  of  evil  as  the  necessary  background  of  the  good. 
Marcus  Aurelius  gives  us  an  illustration  of  this  when 
he  speaks  of  apparent  evil  as  an  after-effect  of  the 
beautiful.  Thus  social  wrong  might  be  looked  on  as 
a  vile  mud-puddle  that  necessarily  follows  the  rain, 
as  a  secondary  result  of  the  evolution  of  social  law. 
A  good  modern  illustration  would  be  the  attitude  of 
an  artist  defending  the  existence  of  unsanitary  houses 
for  country  laborers,  on  the  ground  that  they  blent 
well  with  the  landscape.  The  man  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment could  understand  neither  Marcus  Aurelius  nor 
the  artist. 

It  has  been  said  that  Spinoza's  acosmism  has  a 
Jewish  root,  and  the  saying  is  true.  But  the  full 
truth  is  that  Spinoza's  acosmism  is  intellectualistic, 
and  consequently  holds  aloof  from  the  practical  world  ; 
while  prophetic  acosmism  is  ethical  and  intensely 
practical,  descending  upon  the  existing  social  order 
with  its  whole  weight.  Spinoza  had  the  Greek  in 
him  as  well  as  the  Jew.  The  Greek  saw  and  stated 
all  things  in  terms  of  Being.  Whatever  is,  no  matter 
what  it  is,  has  a  certain  right  to  be.  It  is  a  phenom- 
enon amongst  other  phenomena.  But  the  Jew  saw 


m  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  89 

and  stated  all  things  in  terms  of  Worth.  Compare 
the  Apocalypse  of  Daniel  in  the  Old  Testament,  or 
the  Apocalypse  of  John  in  the  New,  with  Spinoza's 
Ethics.  To  the  apocalyptist  the  "World"  stretches 
in  bulk  five-sixths  of  the  way  around  the  horizon. 
To  Daniel  it  is  the  mighty  Image.  Beside  it  the 
ideal  is  as  a  little  stone.  Yet  the  "  World,"  the  rec- 
ognized power  in  contemporary  history,  vast  as  it  is 
in  bulk,  does  not  thereby  acquire  any  title  to  exist- 
ence. The  stone  is  small  indeed,  but  it  is  cut  out 
without  the  aid  of  human  hands.  God,  the  Eternal, 
cuts  it  out.  It  smites  the  "World"  and  fells  it  to 
the  ground.  Thus  the  impassioned  belief  in  the 
"  end  of  the  world  "  means  that  the  process  of  moral- 
ization  is  to  become  triumphant  and  absolute.  The 
"  end  of  the  world  "  is  not  a  metaphysical  or  transcen- 
dent process,  but  an  event  in  history.  The  purpose 
towards  which  all  history  moves,  comes  close  to  act- 
ual political  and  social  institutions,  yea,  comes  so  close 
that  they  shrivel  up,  as  the  earth  would  shrivel  if  the 
sun  came  near.  The  idea  of  the  Judgment  Day  is  a 
fiery  criticism  passed  by  the  ought-to-be  upon  the  is. 

The  problem  of  the  laborer  called  for  a  view  of  the 
universe  that  should  make  the  future  sovereign  over 
the  past.  The  Greek  and  the  Roman  gave  great 
gifts  in  his  cause.  They  undermined  the  worship 
of  the  past,  thus  destroying  the  sacredness  of  the 
present  state  of  things.  But  Greek  and  Roman  alike 
lacked  foothold  on  the  bottom  of  being.  This  foot- 
hold the  Biblical  organism  of  ideas  afforded.  It  was, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  culturist  and  the  statesman  alike, 
shockingly  intolerant.  Tacitus  described  its  mes- 
sengers in  later  days  as  men  abhorred  by  the  human 


90  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

race.  Whether  the  men  of  the  Bible  were  right  or 
not  in  their  dogmatic  certitude  is  a  question  that  lies 
outside  our  province.  The  only  thing  for  us  to  con- 
sider is  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  had  such  a  cer- 
titude, underlying  the  very  foundation  of  the  mind. 
The  Bible  is  an  intolerant  book,  neither  giving  nor 
taking  quarter  in  its  war  with  opposing  ideas  of  God 
and  man.  When  therefore  we  consider  that  the  in- 
tolerance is  the  intolerance  attending  a  conception  of 
the  fundamental  life  that  involved  the  unity  of  so- 
ciety, the  perfectibility  of  man,  the  equality  of  men 
in  all  essential  things,  and  the  triumph  of  absolute 
justice  in  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  —  is  it  not 
plain  that  social  reform  acquires  by  means  of  it  a 
long  lever  wherewith  to  pry  wrong  out  of  its  place  ? 
The  Old  Testament  strikes  no  truce  with  the  evil 
forces  on  the  earth.  It  has  no  sort  of  patience  with 
the  crooked  paths,  as  if  they  were  crooked  by  grace 
of  the  constitution,  but  demands  that  they  be  made 
straight.  It  does  not  deal  in  pathos,  for  pathos  is 
not  a  quality  of  the  reformer.  Its  one  word  is  action 
—  God's  action  and  man's. 

The  imagination  is  the  aesthetic  of  the  working 
will.  In  the  long  run  mankind  is  moved  more  by 
the  clear  pictures  of  things  than  by  the  patient  analy- 
sis and  the  carefully  reasoned  statement.  If  the 
Bible  contained  no  true  message  from  the  heart  of 
things  to  the  visible  world,  if  it  were  nothing  more 
than  the  poetry  of  the  conscience,  it  would  still 
possess  an  importance  in  the  history  of  the  social 
question  that  is  only  now  beginning  to  be  appreciated. 
Sooner  or  later  that  question  must  ally  itself  with 
religion.  Simple  ethics  will  not  serve  its  turn,  for 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  91 

ethics  deal  with  a  bare  ought-to-be.  This  is  not 
enough  to  permanently  brace  the  will  in  its  wrestle 
with  the  stubborn  "World."  The  ougJit-to-bc  must 
become  in  a  measure  a  present  and  assured  posses- 
sion. Such  a  change  involves  the  change  from  ethic 
to  religion  ;  for  religion  possesses  what  ethic  struggles 
for  and  reveals  the  ougiit-to-be  as  resting  upon  an  eter- 
nal is,  namely,  the  character  of  God.  When  the  social 
movement  reaches  a  critical  stage,  it  is  very  possible 
indeed  that  it  may  make  haste  to  get  religion,  and 
that,  too,  of  the  Biblical  kind,  seeing  that  the  thought 
of  the  Bible  runs  clear  from  a  dogma  of  creation  by  a 
holy  will  to  a  dogma  of  judgment  by  the  same  will, 
and  so  contains  the  material  for  a  reformer's  view  of 
the  universe.  If  it  is  nothing  more  than  the  poetry 
of  conscience,  it  is  an  absolutely  unique  book. 

This  Biblical  organism  of  ideas  took  flesh  in  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  We  count  the  nation  happy  that  has  a 
hero,  because  in  him  it  sees  embodied  the  deepest  ten- 
dencies of  its  past  as  well  as  the  clearest  prophecies 
of  its  future,  so  that  through  him  it  knows  itself  and 
finds  itself.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  social 
question,  the  Christ  is  the  Hero  of  Humanity.  We 
are  not  concerned,  be  it  remembered,  to  discuss  the 
historicity  of  the  New  Testament  records.  For  our 
present  purposes  it  matters  not  whether  the  Christ 
was  the  creator  of  Christianity,  or,  as  Strauss  put  it, 
Christianity's  dream.  The  dream  was  at  least  taken 
for  fundamental  reality,  and  inasmuch  as  we  are 
studying  the  history  of  a  certain  body  of  opinions 
and  their  effect  upon  social  ideals,  noj  their  nature^ 
as_true  or  false,  we  are  indifferent  just  now  to  the 
whole  discussion. 


92  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

The  Christ  was  believed  to  be  both  the  head  of 
humanity  and  the  final  revealer  of  the  deity.  In  a 
twofold  sense  He  was  ultimate,  —  as  synonym  of  what 
is  deepest  in  being  and  as  synonym  of  what  is  final 
in  history.  In  the  Judaism  of  the  centuries  before 
Christ,  two  ideas,  related,  yet  distinct  and  sometimes 
even  separate,  —  the  Logos  idea  and  the  Messianic 
idea,  —  had  developed.  Whatever  thought  went  into 
the  first  was  concerned  mainly  with  the  connection  be- 
tween God  and  the  world.  Whatever  thought  went  into 
the  second  was  taken  up  with  the  contrast  between 
the  beggarly  historical  present  and  the  rich  historical 
future.  In  the  New  Testament  conception  of  Christ 
these  two  ideas  were  interfused.  And  in  this  way 
the  social  question  acquired  a  lever  incomparably 
more  efficient  than  the  Old  Testament  by  itself  could 
provide,  for  the  main  element  in  the  Greek  view  of 
the  universe  was  thus  taken  into  -the  mind.  The 
prophet  had  no  eyes  save  for  the  end  of  things. 
The  philosopher's  wonder  spent  itself  on  the  nature 
of  things.  The  dogma  of  the  Incarnation,  coming 
after  a  period  that  introduced  the  Biblical  to  the 
Greek  point  of  view,  while  it  remained  wholly  loyal 
to  the  Old  Testament  emphasis  upon  the  will  of  God 
in  man  and  so  gave  no  hint  of  putting  the  Greek 
problem  of  reason  at  the  centre  in  place  of  the  pro- 
phetic problem  of  conscience,  yet  permitted  the  Greek 
conception  to  come  within  the  pale.  Consequently 
all  the  mysteries  of  being,  the  whole  bulk  of  the 
universe,  struck  an  alliance  with  the  Messianic  idea 
and  allowed  it  to  mobilize  their  powers  in  the  service 
of  the  social  end.  Philosophy  passed  into  theology, 
and  theology,  becoming  Christology,  was  dramatized 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  93 

in  terms  of  history.  The  deep  and  enduring  powers 
of  the  universe  are  first  taken  up  into  the  being  and 
beauty  of  God.  The  whole  nature  of  God  is  then 
conceived  as  an  infinite  missionary  life,  an  aggres- 
sive moralizing  force  moving  upon  history.  This 
force  and  life  incorporate  themselves  in  an  historical 
person.  He  that  sees  Christ  sees  God.  There  is 
nothing  worth  while  beneath  Christ  or  above  Him. 
Here  or  nowhere  is  the  Supreme  Good.  And  the 
footsteps  of  the  Supreme  Good  in  time  and  space 
lead  from  the  celestial  commonness  of  the  carpenter's 
shop  at  Nazareth  to  the  redeeming  death  on  Calvary. 
In  the  mythology  of  Greece  was  wrapped  up  a 
new  art,  —  the  classic  art  of  the  world.  Aphrodite 
rising  from  the  sea  prefigures  that  impregnation  of 
sense  with  spirit  that  gives  birth  to  the  beautiful. 
In  the  New  Testament  Christology  is  wrapped  up  a 
new  conception  of  society.  Is  it  not  written  in  so 
plain  a  hand  that  it  may  be  read  by  starlight  ?  No 
fate,  nothing  that  defies  the  social  will  or  leads  it 
across  the  deep  only  to  find  a  wilderness,  lurks  at 
the  root  of  things.  The  free  will  of  God  is  omnipo- 
tent, so  that  whatever  has  being  is  material  for  free- 
dom. And  God  does  not  hide  Himself  far  from 
history,  but  in  the  Incarnation  gives  Himself  to  the 
uttermost  through  a  life  lived  in  history.  This  life, 
it  is  true,  proclaims  a  kingdom  not  of  this  world. 
That  does  not  mean  however  a  kingdom  not  in  this 
world,  but  a  kingdom  that  has,  once  and  for  all,  dis- 
owned the  world's  favorite  argument,  the  sword,  put- 
ting the  cross  in  its  place.  The  Old  Testament 
dogma  of  creation  cut  the  root  of  dualism ;  it  ex- 
pelled from  the  human  mind  the  thought  that  there 


94  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

is  anything  in  the  universe  that  can  permanently 
resist  the  best.  The  New  Testament  dogma  of 
Incarnation  is  the  logical  climax  of  the  dogma  of 
creation,  in  that  it  describes  God  as  giving  His  own 
very  best,  in  order  that  the  commonwealth  of  good- 
ness may  be  grounded.  And  by  the  dogma  of  the 
Second  Coming  nature  and  history  are  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  Christ  who  is  God's  best,  as  clay  is 
taken  into  the  hands  of  a  master  sculptor.  The 
impregnation  of  sense  with  ideas  gives  art.  The 
impregnation  of  history  with  the  sovereign  good- 
ness, —  a  process  perfectly  real  for  the  Christian 
consciousness,  whether  real  in  fact  or  not,  —  what 
shall  it  give  to  thought  but  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness  ? 

Moreover*  the  emotional  centre  of  gravity  in  that 
plan  of  a  new  world  is  found  in  the  men  of  low 
estate.  The  prophetic  thought  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment unfolded  in  the  presence  of  a  vast  heathen 
empire.  Heathenism  stood  for  power  divorced  from 
right.  As  one  political  prospect  after  another  closed 
against  the  little  Palestinian  State,  the  prophets  came 
more  and  more  to  identify  the  ideal  Israel,  the  people 
who  stood  for  right  supreme  over  power,  with  the 
lowly.  When  the  State  disappeared  in  the  Exile, 
the  Church  that  succeeded  it  brought  with  her  to 
the  light  and  as  an  essential  part  of  herself  the 
dogma  that  the  poor  are  God's  own  folk.  For 
was  not  Israel  the  laughing-stock  of  the  nations  in 
point  of  power  and  wealth,  while  yet  she  was  the 
Eternal's  estate  in  history  ?  The  Psalms  abound  in 
the  feeling.  .  The  New  Testament  has  it  everywhere. 
It  sings  triumphantly  in  the  Magnificat.  It  speaks 


in  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  95 

through  the  Beatitudes  with  the  self-possession  of 
a  law-giver.  The  Epistle  of  James  is  on  fire  with 
it  (v.  1-5).  St.  Paul  gives  it  a  doctrinal  signifi- 
cance by  affirming  that  the  lowly  were  God's 
chosen  material  for  church-building  (i  Cor.  i.  26  ff.). 
It  even  incorporated  itself  in  an  important  institu- 
tion, for  the  diaconate  was  created  by  the  dignity 
and  worth  of  the  poor.  The  apostolic  experiment 
in  communism  had  the  same  root.  It  was  not  in- 
spired by  the  idea  that  private  property  is  wrong, 
but  by  an  exalted  estimate  of  humanity,  set  ablaze 
by  the  belief  in  an  impending  judgment  of  the  world. 
"  Fairy  stories,"  says  Lowell  in  his  address  on  De- 
mocracy, "  are  made  out  of  the  dreams  of  the  poor." 
Now  dreams,  persisted  in,  harden  into  material  for 
laws  and  even  constitutions.  And  the  dream  —  if 
we  choose  to  call  it  so  —  was  in  this  case  em- 
bodied in  the  Messianic  idea,  was  therefore  rooted 
deep  in  revelation,  and  so  was  authenticated  by  the 
idea  of  God. 

Addison  says  concerning  the  clergyman  who  be- 
longed to  the  Spectator's  Club  that,  whenever  he 
attended  its  meetings,  he  gave  each  member  of  it 
a  new  taste  for  himself.  No  finer  definition  of  a 
gentleman  is  to  be  found.  The  function  of  a  true 
gentleman  is  to  open  up  to  those  he  meets  new 
sources  of  self-respect  within  themselves.  How  per- 
fectly the  Christ  realized  Addison's  ideal  in  regard 
to  the  lowly !  Viewed  as  the  synonym  of  God,  He 
is  always  seen  in  the  society  of  the  outcast  and  the 
downtrodden.  Thus  the  highest  things,  the  deepest 
mysteries  of  the  eternal,  bespeak  a  place  for  them- 
selves in  the  lives  of  the  men  of  lowest  degree. 


g6  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Unless  the  best  that  the  world  knows  can  be  made 
native  to  the  humblest,  God's  self-revelation  is  made 
of  none  effect,  and  the  men  who  are  its  stewards 
become  as  soldiers  who  throw  away  the  sword  to 
fight  with  the  scabbard.  Christ  gives  to  every  man 
He  meets  a  new  taste  for  himself  that  cannot  pall. 
The  fact  that  Christ  delights  above  all  to  meet  the 
lowly  proclaims,  as  the  Church  understands  Him, 
that,  failing  success  in  this  quarter,  the  wars  of  God 
must  end  in  defeat. 

There  is  a  beautiful  story  in  the  Talmud  to  the 
effect  that,  if  ever  the  Messias  is  to  be  found,  He 
shall  be  found  at  the  gate  of  Rome,  amongst  the  sick 
and  wretched.  The  gate  of  Rome  stood  for  the  slum 
of  the  Mediterranean  world.  When  the  Messias  of 
the  Christians  took  upon  Himself  the  masterhood 
over  history  He  incorporated  this  parable  in  His  life. 
He  taught  His  followers  plainly  where  to  look  for  the 
treasures  of  God.  Therewith  came  into  the  Occident 
a  new  passion,  what  has  been  well  called  "the  love 
of  the  unlovely."  The  Greeks  were  an  artist  people. 
Christians,  if  Christians  indeed,  must  be  a  reforming 
people.  Where  the  treasure  is  there  must  the  heart  be. 
If  the  perfect  hides  itself  amongst  the  disinherited 
classes,  thither  must  society  go  under  pain  of  being 
forsaken  by  the  perfect.  Thus  did  the  market  value 
of  the  common  man  rise  vastly,  in  terms  of  what  were 
to  be,  for  near  two  thousand  years,  the  ruling  ideas  of 
the  Occident. 

And  thus  was  a  great  addition  made  to  the  poten- 
tial rights  of  the  downmost  man.  A  man's  rights,  in 
the  long  run,  are  determined  by  the  closeness  of  his 
relations  with  what  is  highest  in  the  eyes  of  mankind. 


Ill  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  97 

This  alone  insures  his  self-respect  and  guarantees  his 
prerogatives.  It  also  safeguards  his  innate  rights,  by 
making  it  the  bounden  duty  of  the  higher  humanity 
to  see  to  it  that  his  rights  are  realized. 


IV 

THE  conflict  in  the  inner  life  of  antiquity  was  be- 
tween the  citizen  and  the  man.  The  tribal  polity 
made  citizenhood  and  humanity  coterminous ;  for 
outside  the  bounds  of  the  Tribe  the  virtues  had  no 
binding  force,  the  stranger  being  an  enemy.  The 
City-State,  built  upon  the  primitive  tribal  foundation, 
could  not  inherit  the  full  intensity  and  fighting  power 
of  the  tribal  organization  without  also  inheriting  its 
narrowness.  But  this  narrowness  gave  way  before 
the  combined  logic  of  thought  and  of  circumstance. 
Greece  worked  out  the  logic  of  thought.  The  great 
colonial  movement  of  the  eighth  and  seventh  cen- 
turies B.C.,  the  habits  of  adventure  and  travel,  the 
restless  curiosity  that  discovered  a  frontier  of  experi- 
ence only  to  go  beyond  it,  the  jostle  and  collision  of 
local  customs,  the  destructive  result  of  criticism,  and 
the  constructive  search  for  the  common  elements 
which  it  made  necessary,  —  all  these  manifold  forces 
brought  the  Greek  mind  to  the  declaration  of  Socrates 
that  he  was  a  citizen  of  the  world.  The  Stoics  colored 
this  logical  and  ethical  movement  with  religion.  A 
great  number  of  their  leaders  came  from  the  eastern 
parts  of  the  Mediterranean  world,  where  the  Greek 
and  the  Oriental  mingled.  They  brought  with  them 
the  aptitude  of  the  Oriental  for  feeling  so  deep  that 

98    ' 


CHAP,  iv      GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  99 

it  outgoes  his  powers  of  analysis.  In  their  hands 
cosmopolitanism  became  a  dogma.  The  citizen  of 
the  old  school  was  driven  off  the  field  by  the  man. 
Humanity  now  bulked  too  large  to  come  within  any 
existing  polity. 

Rome  worked  out  the  logic  of  circumstance.  Com- 
pleting the  task  of  Alexander  and  his  successors,  the 
Empire  broke  down  the  walls  between  the  ancient 
nations  and  turned  their  experience  into  a  common 
enclosure.  The  larger  part  of  the  world  lay  beyond 
the  view  of  the  average  man  of  the  Empire,  —  Meso- 
potamia and  Persia  in  part,  India  and  China  almost 
altogether.  Though  the  men  of  science  took  note  of 
the  outlying  peoples,  upon  the  working  imagination 
of  the  Mediterranean  world  they  had  very  little  effect. 
But  the  Empire  by  itself  was  large  enough  to  be  a 
world  unto  itself.  Our  imagination  cannot  handle 
an  unlimited  material,  and  whatever  exceeds  our  stint 
is  as  if  it  were  not.  Rome  threw  together  so  great  a 
number  of  widely  differing  peoples,  compelling  them 
to  keep  the  peace  and  in  some  way  discover  their 
common  stock,  that  there  was  no  need  of  going  out- 
side her  bounds.  All  the  forces  that  could  be  brought 
into  the  field  in  the  warfare  between  the  citizen  and 
the  man  were  mobilized  for  the  breaking  up  of  local- 
ism and  the  widening  of  sympathies.  The  ancient 
States  perished.  The  vast  World-State  that  pushed 
itself  into  their  place  was  to  the  average,  and  even 
to  the  educated  man,  hardly  so  much  a  State  as  a 
whole  world  in  itself.  So  the  frontiers  of  humanity 
were  pushed  far  out  beyond  the  bounds  of  citizen- 
hood  in  all  its  ancient  forms. 

Another    movement    accompanied    this    tendency 


100  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

towards  universalism.  In  proportion  to  the  deteriora- 
tion of  the  inherited  standards  of  value  and  according 
to  the  degree  in  which  local  traditions  lost  their  hold, 
the  life  within  the  individual  grew  larger.  The  widen- 
ing of  the  outer  world  and  the  deepening  of  the  inner 
went  on  together.  The  connection  is  not  accidental, 
but  inherent.  There  must  be  a  saving  unity  some- 
where. So  long  as  the  words  and  deeds  of  the  sacred 
past  stand,  dressed  in  majesty  and  awe,  before  the 
present,  that  unity  is  found  outside.  No  matter  how 
many  inconsistencies  and  even  glaring  contradictions 
may  gather  about  the  text  of  the  law,  the  fact  that  it 
is  law  and  brings  its  own  authority  with  it,  denies 
them  the  right  of  speech.  Let  it  happen,  however, 
that  the  authority  of  the  past  begins  to  trip  and 
stumble,  and  they  shall  all  become  articulate.  Then 
the  saving  unities  of  life  must  be  found  elsewhere. 
When  difficulties  thicken  upon  the  outer  world,  the 
inner  world  presents  itself  as  an  asylum  secure  from 
contradiction  and  promising  peace.  Thus  the  ten- 
dency towards  imperialism  drove  consciousness  in 
.upon  itself.  Political  universalism  was  accompanied 
by  an  interior  view  of  life.  All  over  the  Mediter- 
ranean world  subjectivity  deepened.  Amongst  the 
Jews  it  resulted  in  the  substitution  of  prayer  for 
sacrifice,  of  the  synagogue  with  its  preaching  for  the 
Temple  with  its  Levitical  establishment.  Amongst 
the  Gentiles  it  resulted  in  emphasis  upon  self-know- 
ledge as  the  only  road  to  salvation.  Meditation  and 
silent  communion  took  the  place  of  warfare  and  for- 
eign travel.  Reason  and  conscience  sought  for  the 
universal  life  called  God  or  Nature,  and  hoped  to  find 
in  its  society  the  definition  of  the  universal  individual. 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  IOI 

It  is  always  difficult  to  realize  the  greatness  of  a 
commonplace.  Things  that  succeed  in  having  them- 
selves taken  for  granted,  do  it  at  the  cost  of  their 
power  to  fix  the  attention.  The  penalty  attached  to 
an  idea  that  ceases  to  be  a  problem  and  becomes 
an  established  principle,  is  the  loss  of  its  power  to 
excite  wonder.  Thus  the  separation  of  Church  and 
State  has  become  so  completely  a  commonplace  of 
constitutional  law  for  us  Americans,  that  we  do  not 
readily  appreciate  its  historical  significance.  We  con- 
sider it  a  matter  of  course.  In  Europe  also  the  tide 
is  setting  so  strongly  towards  it,  that  within  a  cen- 
tury or  two  it  is  sure  to  become  a  fixed  maxim  of 
universal  political  practice.  Naturally,  then,  since 
we  know  that  universal  history  in  its  present  stage 
seems  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  maxim,  and  since  we 
know  that  manifest  destiny  will  take  care  of  it,  we 
are  not  apt  to  look  to  the  roots  of  it,  or,  if  we  do,  we 
interpret  it  in  terms  of  our  dominating  individualism. 
We  readily  appreciate  it  so  far  as  it  involves  the 
emancipation  of  religion  from  the  use  of  force  and 
so  far  as  it  insures  the  right  of  each  individual  to 
worship  God  in  his  own  way.  But  the  profound 
significance  of  the  distinction  for  the  conception  of 
society  escapes  us. 

It  is  well,  first  of  all,  to  remind  ourselves  that  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State  is  a  downright 
novelty,  and  that  even  in  our  own  day  it  lacks 
recognition  amongst  much  the  larger  part  of  man- 
kind. It  is  of  course"  wrapped  up  in  the  history  of 
the  Occident,  yet  even  there  it  is  in  part  not  yet 
explicit,  as  in  Russia;  while  in  the  other  quarters 
of  the  world  it  either  finds  no  recognition  at  all,  or 


102  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

such  recognition  as  is  granted  it  has  been  almost 
mechanically  imported  from  the  West,  as  is  the  case 
in  Japan.  In  primitive  times  Church  and  State  were 
everywhere  identical.  The  king  of  the  tribe  was 
also  the  priest.  In  Egypt  the  Pharaoh  was  believed 
to  be  the  son  and  vicar  of  the  Supreme  God.  China 
has  brought  the  primitive  view  in  its  integrity  down 
to  our  own  day ;  for  the  Imperial  Gazette,  the  oldest 
newspaper  in  the  world,  raises  men  to  sainthood 
exactly  as  Queen  Victoria  raises  a  man  to  the  peer- 
age, and  as  our  President  brevets  an  officer  in  the 
army.  In  Greece  a  man  was  a  churchman  because 
he  was  a  statesman.  Aristotle  exercised  both  func- 
tions when  he  said  that  the  State,  although  it  origi- 
nated as  an  answer  to  the  problem  of  bare  existence, 
had  its  real  significance  in  the  fact  that  it  made  noble 
living  possible.  In  Rome  the  emperor  was  pontifex 
maximus.  In  Israel  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  com- 
bined the  purposes  of  the  United  States  Constitution 
and  the  Westminster  Catechism.  Mohammedanism, 
wherever  it  goes,  carries  with  it  the  identity  of 
Church  and  State.  So  it  would  be  within  bounds 
to  say  that  in  the  religious  experience  of  the  race, 
as  it  stretches  from  the  days  before  history  began 
to  our  own  time,  the  clear  distinction  between  Church 
and  State  has  not  been  more  than  one  part  in  a 
thousand. 

It  is  generally  safe  to  conclude  that  two  phenom- 
ena, both  of  them  novel,  which  lie  within  the  same 
tract  of  experience,  have  some 'direct  connection  with 
each  other,  although  it  may  be  logically  perilous  to 
venture  upon  saying  what  the  exact  connection  is. 
Humanity  is  an  organism,  not  an  aggregate,  and 


iv  GENESIS   OF   THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  103 

everything  in  its  history  plays  the  double  part  of 
cause  and  effect.  An  illustration  may  be  found  at 
our  doors.  The  bicycle  has  affected  many  forms  of 
trade,  is  bringing  in  dress  reform,  and  has  entered 
politics  in  order  to  get  good  roads.  A  humorous 
illustration  is  found  in  the  famous  argument  upon 
the  proportion  between  the  number  of  old  maids  liv- 
ing in  a  certain  part  of  England  and  the  quantity  of 
clover  growing  there.  Old  maids  keep  cats ;  cats 
kill  the  field-mice ;  the  less  field-mice,  the  more 
bees;  the  more  bees,  the  more  efficient  the  cross- 
fertilization.  Consequently  the  quantity  of  clover 
varies  with  the  number  of  old  maids.  Now  the 
social  question  is  one  phenomenon  as  new  in  history 
as  it  is  notable  in  itself.  Greece  and  Rome  made  an 
attempt  at  it,  but  taken  in  the  scope  and  power  of 
social  reconstruction  which  it  has  to-day,  it  is  new 
to  the  Occident,  while  outside  the  Occident  it  has 
never  been  heard  of.  A  second  phenomenon,  even 
more  striking  in  its  novelty  up  to  the  present,  is 
the  distinction  between  Church  and  State.  It  is 
knit  into  the  very  warp  of  modern  history,  as  that 
history  came  out  of  the  Mediterranean  world.  It 
antedates  the  birth  of  the  principle  of  nationality, 
and  has  assisted  at  the  genesis  of  every  existing 
nation.  It  goes  as  deep  as  the  foundation  of  modern 
politics. 

Moreover,  not  only  is  the  distinction  ingrained  in 
the  history  out  of  which  the  social  question  has  come, 
but  the  currents  of  the  Mediterranean  world  were 
plainly  flowing  towards  it  centuries  before  the  dis- 
tinction was  achieved.  On  the  one  side  of  that 
world,  the  Jewish  side,  the  State  had  died  in  order 


104          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

that  the  Church  might  be  born  ;  and  the  Church,  when 
born,  found  the  conditions  of  her  growth  shaped  at 
every  point  by  the  existence  of  a  heathen  over-lord, 
wielding  a  power  so  mighty  that  permanent  resist- 
ance was  hopeless,  so  that  the  one  thing  for  higher 
Jewish  politics  to  make  up  its  mind  on  was  the  recog- 
nition of  the  heathen  empire  as  established  at  least 
for  the  present  in  the  mastery  of  temporal  things. 
The  prophets  had  been  individuals  of  so  large  a 
make  that  it  was  not  possible  for  them  to  live  at 
peace  with  the  Jewish  State  of  their  time.  And  the 
growth  of  the  Messianic  Idea  after  the  Exile,  the 
development  of  the  belief  in  immortality,  the  celes- 
tialization  of  the  things  which  the  best  Jews  ac- 
counted best,  moved  in  the  same  direction.  Thus 
the  situation  called  for  a  distinction  between  Church 
and  State,  and  Judaism  was  the  pioneer  of  Christian- 
ity in  this  field.  On  the  other  side,  the  Graeco-Roman 
side  of  the  Mediterranean  world,  the  invasion  of  the 
Empire  by  Oriental  religions,  bringing  mysteries  of 
all  sorts  with  them,  the  deepening  of  self-conscious- 
ness, the  spiritualizing  of  the  cosmos,  the  attempt 
of  Neoplatonism  to  found  something  like  a  Church, 
were  pregnant  portents  of  a  society  built  on  a  foun- 
dation different  from  that  of  the  ancient  societies. 
As  in  Judaism,  so  here  we  see  the  outstanding  indi- 
vidual trying  to  make  for  himself  a  home  larger  than 
any  ancient  state,  yea,  larger  than  all  the  states  of 
antiquity  put  together  and  worked  into  one  total  by 
the  Empire.  The  State,  in  the  largest  and  deepest 
form  that  antiquity  could  give  to  it,  was  not  equal  to 
the  task  of  housing  the  universal  individual.  There- 
fore, the  separation  of  Church  and  State  aiming,  as 


IV  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  105 

it  does,  to  furnish  the  supply  to  this  demand,  may 
fairly  be  called  the  ethical  climax  of  antiquity. 

Here,  then,  we  have  two  great  phenomena  within 
the  same  tract  of  time  and  space.  That  they  are 
connected  in  some  way  is  certain.  The  most  ar- 
dent socialist  would  surely  go  into  bankruptcy,  if 
he  were  not  convinced  that  his  cause  has  roots  as 
deep  as  history;  for,  unless  history  takes  him  seri- 
ously, how  shall  he  take  himself  seriously  ?  If  the 
social  question  is  a  patch  on  history,  he  must  be  a 
patch  on  society.  So  we  are  sure  there  is  a  con- 
nection between  the  two  phenomena,  and  we  would 
willingly  take  a  certain  risk  of  error  in  affirming  the 
exact  connection.  But  if  what  I  said  a  little  while 
since  is  true,  the  risk  is  not  great.  The  larger  house 
built  for  itself  by  the  universal  individual  was  the 
Christian  Church.  The  separation  of  that  Church 
from  the  heathen  State  was  necessary,  if  the  indi- 
vidual was  to  be  clearly  denned  and  dogmatically 
universalized.  Inasmuch  as  the  whole  point  of  the 
social  movement  is  in  the  question  —  How  far  out 
and  down  can  we  carry  the  principle  of  individu- 
ality ?  —  the  logical  connection  between  the  two  phe- 
nomena should  be  as  plain  as  the  historical. 

To  the  Church  was  committed  the  task  of  capital- 
izing the  spiritual  gains  of  antiquity,  thus  laying 
foundations  for  a  new  and  more  democratic  type  of 
society.  This  is  not  saying  that  there  were  not  some 
heavy  losses  undergone  when  the  Church  took  upon 
herself  the  work  of  the  State.  But  we  are  not  wont 
to  waste  our  time  in  computing  the  number  of  acres 
lost  to  tillage  in  America  by  reason  of  our  rivers, 
seeing  that  rivers  are  as  much  a  part  of  the  nature 


IO6          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

of  things  as  farms.  The  transfer  of  the  spiritual 
problem  from  the  State  to  the  Church  was  inevita- 
ble; it  was  demanded  by  the  State  itself.  Greek 
philosophy  after  Aristotle  steadily  weakened  in  the 
desire  to  know  for  knowledge'  sake,  and  strengthened 
in  the  desire  to  live  in  peace  with  the  universe.  Stoi- 
cism, with  its  growing  emphasis  on  immediate  feeling, 
its  appeal  to  the  common  consciousness,  its  develop- 
ment of  allegory  in  order  to  find  the  nobler  idea  of 
God  in  the  most  out-of-the-way  and  unlikely  places, 
represented  what  was  deepest  in  the  movement  of 
the  times.  Art  was  practically  dead  in  the  third 
century.  When  Proclus,  the  head  of  the  Neopla- 
tonic  School  in  the  fourth  century,  expressed  the 
wish  that  all  books  might  be  destroyed  save  the 
Oracles  and  the  Phcedo,  he  gave  speech  to  the  deep- 
est need  of  the  Empire, — the  need  of  something 
universal  and  authoritative.  The  larger  life  of  the 
ancient  State  forced  upon  it  certain  tasks  in  the 
line  of  a  deeper  and  broader  society.  The  expan- 
sion from  the  local  to  the  human,  to  use  Conte's 
phrase,  was  the  work  called  for.  This  involved,  for 
one  thing,  a  definition  of  man  transcending  all  the 
political  forms  of  the  time ;  and,  for  another  thing, 
a  driving  power  that  should  force  the  definition  down 
through  the  lowest  stratum  of  society.  The  heathen 
State  was  unequal  to  those  labors  and  accordingly 
passed  them  over  to  the  Church. 

The  function  of  monotheism  is  to  put  the  world  in 
the  service  of  God.  The  idea  of  God  is  the  idea  of 
something  that  carries  its  value  within  itself,  and  is 
therefore  insured  against  the  changes  and  chances  of 
the  life  in  time  and  space.  This  is  the  emotional  sub- 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  107 

stance  of  the  distinction  between  the  finite  and  the 
infinite.  It  was  no  accident  that  the  lyrical  mood 
came  upon  Greek  literature  before  Greek  philosophy 
began.  The  epic  mood  was  over.  The  unfettered 
joy  in  action  gave  way  to  a  deepening  sense  of  the 
limitations  of  life.  The  heart,  sick  of  change,  relieved 
itself  in  poetry.  And  this  altered  mood  heralded  the 
problem  of  philosophy.  How  find  unity  in  the  mani- 
fold ?  Man  needs  the  Eternal,  because  he  cannot  so 
act  as-to  eternize  himself,  cannot  create  the  "timeless 
book"  or  work  out  the  undying  deed,  unless  he  finds 
himself  in  relation  with  something  that  is  not  a  means 
to  an  end ;  something  that,  by  identifying  the  means 
with  the  end,  keeps  its  worth  at  its  own  command. 
When  Tennyson  sings, 

"  And  gazing  on  thee,  sullen  tree, 
Sick  for  thy  stubborn  hardihood," 

he  expresses  the  same  yearning  after  something  that 
has  a  value  above  time  and  circumstance.  The  nine- 
tieth psalm  expresses  it  in  the  grandest  style.  The 
Eternal  is  the  dwelling-place  from  one  generation  to 
another,  of  the  men  who  would  fain  think  the  thoughts 
that  do  not  go  down  with  the  sun.  Prophecy  is  alive 
with  the  feeling;  "all  flesh  is  grass.  .  .  .  The  grass 
withereth,  the  flower  fadeth ;  but  the  word  of  our 
God  shall  stand  forever"  (Is.  xl.  6-8).  The  first 
end  of  monotheism  is  to  put  the  world,  the  change- 
able, that  which  has  no  permanent  value  of  its  own, 
in  the  service  of  God,  the  unchanging,  that  which  has 
its  own  value  in  its  own  keeping. 

We  here   come   into  view  of  the   vast  social   sig- 
nificance of  the  theological  controversies  of  the  third 


108          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

and  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  The  men  of  our  day 
who  cry  down  all  dogma  in  the  interest  of  the  practical 
things  are,  without  meaning  it,  narrowing  the  practi- 
cable. What  men  shall  undertake  to  do  is  determined 
by  what  they  conceive  to  be  possible.  A  caucus  at 
the  back  side  of  the  moon  is  a  part  of  no  man's  pro- 
gramme. The  practical  is  an  elastic  quantity.  To 
keep  it  indefinitely  elastic  is  the  function  of  dogma ; 
for  dogma  is  a  bold  sally  of  reason  and  imagination 
into  that  world  unseen  and  beyond,  that  larger,  infi- 
nitely larger  world,  which  insists  on  calling  the  basis  of 
the  visible  world  a  false  bottom,  and  regards  its  bounds, 
although  guaranteed  by  the  social  constitution,  as  a 
temporary  arrangement  having  no  guarantee  in  the 
eternal.  The  democratic  ideal,  therefore,  has  a  very 
real  interest  in  the  debate  between  Athanasius  and 
Arius  over  the  iota.  The  debate  between  the  Chris- 
tian and  the  heathen  concepts  of  God  involved  a 
warfare  of  ideals  for  humanity.  The  dogma  of  the 
Incarnation  completed  the  dogma  of  creation  and 
revelation.  It  affirmed  that  there  is  nothing  in  God 
which  may  not  come  into  relation  with  mankind.  It 
was  all  in  the  interest  of  the  common  man.  The 
genealogies  of  the  Zeus-descended  kings  belonged  to 
an  aristocratic  society.  The  idea  of  caste  makes  the 
limitation  of  the  lowly  a  permanent  part  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  universe.  Metaphysical  monotheism 
left  the  shoemaker  outside  the  pale  of  the  best.  But 
the  dogma  of  the  Incarnation  was  all  in  the  interest  ' 
of  the  common  man.  It  assured  him  that  he  was 
kith  and  kin  with  the  highest,  that  he  was  in  ever- 
lasting partnership  with  the  best.  Although  it  was 
expressed  in  Greek  terms,  it  droye  home  the  essential 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  109 

thought  of  the  Bible ;  for  the  Bible  is  the  book  of 
witness  to  the  downmost  man's  capacity  for  the  high- 
est things.  When  Athanasius  contended  for  the  full 
meaning  of  the  words  "  God  became  man,"  he  did  it 
in  order  that  he  might  go  on  with  full  power  to  the 
words  "in  order  that  man  might  become  divine." 
And  "man,"  as  he  viewed  him,  took  in  the  saddle- 
maker  on  the  same  terms  with  Socrates.  Yea,  "  Man" 
included  the  lowest  slave.  He  had  equal  right  of 
entry  with  Caesar  into  the  holiest. 

Nicene  dogma  declares  in  effect  that  there  is  no 
stint  to  the  practicable.  The  practical  becomes  in 
theory  indefinitely  elastic.  And  the  man  whose 
spiritual  boundaries  are  thus  pushed  far  out  beyond 
all  present  accomplishment  is  the  universal  man,  that 
definition  of  the  common  essence  of  all  men  for  which 
antiquity  was  seeking.  This  definition  was  made 
inseparable  from  the  definition  of  God,  the  highest 
good.  The  common  man  is  accordingly  thought  of 
as  being  in  abiding  covenant  with  that  which  has 
value  in  itself,  independent  of  all  circumstance. 
Therefore,  "  he  ceases  ...  to  have  a  bare  market 
price."20  He  acquires  an  ideal  value.  And  this 
means  that  he  has  in  him  something  which  cannot  be 
bought  or  sold,  something  which  can  only  be  come  at 
through  the  loving  gift  of  a  freeman  to  his  peers. 

Hereby  the  foundation  of  the  idea  of  Justice  is  laid 
bare.  The  marrow  of  the  idea  is  that  each  man  has 
an  equal  claim  with  every  other  man  upon  the  full 
development  of  himself.21  Not  that  all  men  are  equal 
in  the  abstract  sense,  but  equal  in  the  right  to  a  free 
development  of  whatever  powers  and  possibilities  are 
severally  stored  up  in  them.  Inasmuch  as  no  eye 


1 10          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

save  the  eye  of  Omniscience  can  know  beforehand 
what  possibilities  are  locked  up  in  any  given  indi- 
vidual, although  placed  by  birth  on  the  lowest  level, 
it  is  clear  that  for  all  human  vision  the  possibilities 
of  that  individual  are  indefinite.  When  however 
the  lines  of  sight  run  out  at  every  point  into  the 
indefinite,  we  have  a  practical  infinite.  This,  then, 
is  the  foundation  of  the  idea  of  Justice.  The  com- 
mon man,  the  unit  of  society,  has  practically  infinite 
possibilities  before  him.  Now  the  idea  of  Justice  or 
Right  is  embodied  in  the  State.  Without  that  idea 
the  State  is  a  marriage  of  convenience  between  the 
classes  and  the  masses,  to  be  dissolved  at  the  whim 
of  either  party,  when  the  whim  happens  to  be  backed 
by  power.  Hence  the  State,  as  the  organism  of  right, 
must  either  surrender  all  its  sanctity,  all  that  in  it 
which  makes  it  a  Fatherland,  for  which  men  are  glad 
to  throw  away  the  dearest  thing  they  own  as  though 
it  were  a  trifle ;  or  else  must  undertake  to  see  to  it 
that  the  obstacles  which  are  heaped  up  before  the 
door  of  the  individuality  latent  in  this  or  that  class  of 
men  shall  be  removed. 

The  Institutes  defined  Justice  as  the  fixed  disposi- 
tion to  give  every  man  his  own.  But  "  his  own  "  is 
either  a  larger  or  smaller  amount  .of  naked  material 
goods,  in  which  case  the  State  must  soon  lose  all 
hold  on  the  imagination  and  become  the  private 
establishment  of  the  man  with  the  heaviest  fist;  or 
else  it  is  an  indefinite  quantity  of  possibilities,  which 
eventually  takes  refuge  in  the  conception  of  the  com- 
mon man's  nature  as  an  infinite  thing.  We  may  find 
help  here  in  a  parallel  with  the  eighteenth  century. 
Rousseau  and  Burns  and  Word&worth,  who  discovered 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  m 

to  us  the  elemental  man,  also  introduced  us  to  the 
Nature-Sense.22  The  worshipful  attitude  towards  com- 
mon things,  that  finds  its  food  in  a  religious  or  half 
religious  estimate  of  them,  is  in  closest  sympathy 
with  the  reverent  attitude  of  the  State  towards  the 
day-laborer.  The  discovery  of  an  infinite  value  in 
the  common  man  is  indispensable  to  a  State  that  is  to 
be  broadly  democratic. 

We  are  not  here  concerned  with  theology  except  as 
one  element  in  the  total  cause  of  certain  ideals,  with 
their  resulting  standards  of  value.  But  in  the  line  of 
genetic  study  we  may  safely  affirm  that  the  authorita- 
tive declaration  that  the  second  Person  of  the  Trinity, 
whose  being  was  pledge  of  the  being  of  the  world 
of  man  and  guarantee  of  its  perfectibility,  was  of 
one  essence  with  the  eternal  Father,  is  not  an  affair 
for  scholastics,  like  the  question  touching  the  number 
of  angels  who  can  dance  on  the  point  of  a  needle. 
On  the  contrary,  the  dogma  is  in  company  with  the 
publication  of  the  Ten  Tables  at  Rome.  For  I 
repeat  that  there  is  no  ultimate  standing-ground  for 
the  idea  of  right,  save  in  the  conception  of  man's 
nature  as  infinite  and  so  possessing  a  value  above  the 
market  price.  Whether  it  is  possible  in  our  day  to 
express  that  infinite  quality  in  man  in  terms  of  an 
evolutionary  view  of  the  universe  and  without  help 
from  the  idea  of  God  is  a  fair  and  necessary  question. 
But  that  it  was  impossible  in  the  epoch  of  the  Nicene 
creed  to  get  along  without  such  help  is  beyond  all 
possibility  of  doubt.  With  the  apparatus  at  their 
command,  the  Church  Fathers  had  but  one  way  open 
to  them  for  permanently  grounding  their  valuation  of 
the  common  man  as  infinite.  They  did  it,  and  could 


112          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

do  it,  only  in  terms  of  his  relation  with  God.  And  by 
so  doing  they  wrought  a  work  of  deepest  import  to 
modernity ;  for  modernity  was  drilled  and  catechised, 
for  the  first  fifteen  hundred  years  of  its  life,  in  the 
patristic  view  of  things. 

And  that  all  this  is  not  fairy  gold,  vanishing  when 
you  touch  it,  but,  in  potence,  current  money  of  the  mer- 
chants, is  proved  by  the  development  of  canon  law. 
That  Church  which  is  separate  from  the  State  is  not 
a  company  of  mystics,  sweetly  dreaming  on  things  to 
come,  but  a  masterful  corporation,  with  a  decided 
talent  for  dominion  over  this  world  and  a  strong 
hand  on  the  reins  of  society.  The  marvellous  con- 
federation of  churches  in  the  second  and  third  cen- 
turies, which  came  to  be  called  the  Catholic  Church, 
is  quite  as  much  a  part  of  terrestrial  history  as  the 
Achaian  league  or  the  Holy  Alliance.  We  must  not 
let  ourselves  be  deceived  by  the  supposed  parallel 
between  the  relation  of  Church  and  State  in  America 
and  their  relation  in  the  Mediterranean  world.  The 
State  in  America  is  a  Christian  State.  Although 
the  name  of  God  is  not  found  in  the  Constitution,  the 
Christian  idea  of  God  is  inbred  in  the  minds  of  law- 
makers. There  is  some  friction,  and  signs,  perhaps, 
of  more.  Yet  on  the  whole  Church  and  State 
amicably  divide  the  field ;  and  the  State,  by  claiming 
the  school  question  for  its  own,  successfully  asserts 
its  dignity,  not  allowing  the  Church  to  monopolize 
the  spiritual.  But  the  Roman  Empire  was  a  heathen 
State,  opening  by  the  backdoor  into  a  Church  built 
on  the  heathen  view  of  the  universe;  while  the 
Church  opened  by  the  backdoor  into  a  State,  built 
on  the  Christian  view  of  the  universe.  It  was  there- 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  113 

fore  in  some  sense  a  conflict  of  Church  with  Church 
and  of  State  with  State.  And  when  Constantine  con- 
firmed the  rights  of  the  Bishops  as  Judges,  he  was 
assisting  at  the  creation  of  a  spiritual  empire  that 
was  to  find  its  greatest  representative  in  Hildebrand. 
The  men  who  passed  over  from  heathenism  to 
the  Catholic  Church  took  their  natural  individuali- 
ties with  them.  Origen  is  strikingly  like  Plotinus. 
Ambrose  is  a  Roman  senator  of  the  highest  type, 
turned  Christian  and  made  a  bishop.  Augustine  is 
a  Cicero  of  deeper  mind  and  larger  make.  The 
leaders  and  governors  of  the  Church  carried  the 
personal  equation  with  them  when  they  forsook 
heathenism.  At  the  same  time  they  burned  their 
ships  behind  them.  When  our  forefathers  left  the 
mother-country  and  came  to  our  own  dear  land,  they 
brought  with  them  the  English  habit  of  mind  in 
matters  of  government.  At  the  same  time,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  they  "  settled  down  on  bare  creation," 
as  Webster  said  in  his  Plymouth  oration,  bringing 
with  them  none  of  the  inherited  establishments  that 
both  adorned  and  cumbered  the  ground  in  the  mother- 
country,  the  constitutional  principles  most  active  in 
the  England  of  their  day  got  a  free  field.  So,  in 
some  measure,  wrought  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  when  they  had  passed  from  heathen- 
ism to  Christianity.  They  did  not  go  over-seas. 
But  they  did  almost  as  much  in  effect.  To  become 
a  Christian  was  well-nigh  equivalent  to  disowning  one 
world  and  appropriating  another.  There  was  no 
longer  a  single  element  of  the  old  life  whereon  sus- 
picion might  not  fall.  So  far  as  it  was  psychologi- 
cally possible,  the  convert  made  a  clean  break  with 


114          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

his  past.  As  a  consequence,  those  causes  of  the  soul 
or  the  universal  man,  which  the  men  of  deep  heart 
and  high  reason  from  Socrates  down  had  been  plead- 
ing, were  now  carried  up  to  a  court  wherein  they 
were  sure  of  a  much  fuller  and  fairer  hearing. 

One  result  was  that  the  ground  was  cleared  for 
a  fierce  attack  on  the  positive.  The  theory  of  the 
social  contract  is  of  such  vital  importance  in  the 
growth  of  modern  political  ideas  that  it  will  stand 
another  reference.  In  historical  extent  it  goes  back 
as  far  as  modern  political  theory  goes ;  for  it  was 
either  implicit  or  half-explicit  in  the  scholastics  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  wholly  explicit  from  1 500 
to  1800. 

As  to  its  intrinsic  meaning,  it  is  a  necessary  fiction. 
According  to  Aristotle,  that  which  is  last  to  appear 
in  the  analysis  is  deepest  in  nature.  When  a  new 
thought  takes  possession  of  the  mind,  it  masters  the 
imagination,  and  to  do  that,  it  must  have  asserted  its 
dignity  in  terms  of  time.  Being  the  deepest  thing, 
it  must  have  been  prior  to  all  other  things.  The 
tendency  to  put  what  is  dearest  to  the  heart  first  in 
time  is  well-nigh  irresistible,  even  to  men  who  have 
begun  to  make  use  of  the  concept  of  evolution,  while 
by  men  who  have  not  discovered  or  utilized  that  con- 
cept the  tendency  is  not  to  be  withstood.  The  theory 
of  contract  is,  then,  an  inevitable  fiction,  translating 
into  fact  an  inevitable  idea,  as  Plato  translated  such 
ideas  into  myths.  The  idea  is  the  right  of  the  pres- 
ent to  freely  criticise  all  the  precedents  of  govern- 
ment which  the  past  hands  down.  It  is  the  death 
of  the  illusion  of  divineness  that  clothed  and  veiled 
the  social  structure  within  which  the  individual  finds 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  115 

himself,  so  that  it  stands  out  in  clear  day  as  some- 
thing made  through  men,  for  men;  and  so,  to  be 
altered  by  man,  when  his  interests  demand  a  change. 
The  theory  of  the  social  contract  projected  this 
right  to  criticise  the  whole  social  order  into  the  re- 
motest past,  in  order  to  dignify  it.  The  right  to 
criticise  is  inseparable  from  the  power  to  create.  It 
was  imagined  therefore  that  men  had  consciously 
created  government  and  society.  Hence  they  could 
deliberately  and  with  authority  undo  them,  in  order 
to  make  a  way  for  better  forms.  Sir  Henry  Maine 
gives  Roman  law  as  the  chief  cause  of  the  theory.23 
This  however  is  to  make  a  whole  out  of  a  part. 
Roman  law  furnished  all  the  terminology  and  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  experience  that  went  into  it. 
But  feudalism  is  another  main  element  in  the  total 
cause.  And  still  another  is  the  separation  of  the 
Church  and  the  State,  with  the  monastic  organization 
of  the  spiritual  life  in  which  the  Church  finally 
brought  up.  The  working  reason  and  the  quickened 
conscience  of  the  Mediterranean  world,  standing  within 
the  Church  and  looking  out  and  back  at  the  life  they 
had  abandoned,  necessarily  took  up  a  questioning, 
even  when  it  was  not  a  wholly  depreciatory  attitude 
towards  the  traditional  order  of  things.  The  Fathers 
preached  the  duty  of  obedience  to  the  Emperor  and 
did  it  with  perfect  honesty.  They  abounded  in  loyal 
comment  on  St.  Paul's  words  "  The  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God"  (Rom.  xiii.  i).  Yet  in  spite 
of  themselves  their  acceptance  of  Christianity  threw 
suspicion  on  the  title-deeds  of  the  whole  governing 
order.  Nothing  remains  divine  in  the  eyes  of  men 
when  they  can  see  its  limits.  The  meadow  that 


Il6          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

slopes  to  the  sea  confesses  its  parochial  mind.  The 
Fathers  saw  what  was  for  them  the  whole  heart  of 
things  standing  quite  aloof  from  all  political  forms, 
and  speaking  through  sacraments  and  sacramental 
relations  that  had  not  the  slightest  direct  connection 
with  the  State.  Necessarily  the  whole  political  order 
largely  lost  its  divineness ;  ceased  to  be  mysterious 
and  infinite ;  no  longer  conveyed  or  interpreted  the 
highest  things.  In  effect  it  fell  from  the  level  of  the 
natural  to  the  level  of  the  positive. 

It  is  in  keeping  with  the  characteristics  of  the 
Latin  Fathers  that  we  should  have  to  turn  to  them 
rather  than  to  the  Greek  Fathers,  in  order  to  find 
the  Christian  development  of  the  idea  of  Natural 
Law.  Because  they  were  Latins,  consequently  less 
speculative,  they  kept  closer  to  the  ground.  They 
were  nearer  the  questions  that  drew  the  attention  of 
men  of  affairs.  Now,  Tertullian,  Lactantius,  and 
Ambrose  practically  agree  that  there  is  no  real  law 
but  Natural  Law.  Thus  Lactantius  says :  "  Humanity 
is  to  be  preserved  if  we  wish  rightly  to  be  -called 
men.  But  what  else  is  this  preservation  of  humanity 
than  the  loving  a  man  because  he  is  a  man? "  And 
then,  falling  upon  Cicero  because  in  his  De  Officiis  he 
does  not  give  full  play  to  humanity,  he  says  :  "  This 
professor  of  wisdom  plainly  keeps  men  back  from 
acts  of  kindness  and  advises  them  carefully  to  guard 
their  property,  and  to  preserve  their  money-chest, 
rather  than  to  follow  justice.  ...  If  Cicero  were 
now  alive,  I  should  certainly  exclaim  :  Here,  here, 
Marcus  Tullius,  you  have  erred  from  true  justice;,  and 
you  have  taken  it  away  by  one  word,  since  you  meas- 
ured the  offices  of  piety  and  humanity  by  utility."24 


iv  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  117 

The  law  of  love  is  alone  according  to  Nature.  The 
likeness  between  Lac'isntius'  book  and  Cicero's  De 
Officiis  is  very  striking.  But  the  light  of  similarity 
makes  the  unlikeness  even  more  striking.  Cicero 
was  a  practical  statesman,  as  well  as  a  theorist. 
Hence,  while,  as  a  theorist,  he  believed  in  Natural 
Law  alone,  and,  consequently,  in  absolute  justice,  in 
practice  he  concedes  broad  ground  to  utility.  So  his 
views  are  stratified,  not  of  one  piece,  and  such  strati- 
fication is  apt  to  be  found  in  every  statesman  who  is 
in  some  measure  speculative.  The  ideas  are  allowed 
to  use  their  wings,  yet  never  to  soar  beyond  reach  of 
the  falconer's  voice.  But  there  are  no  strata  in  Lac- 
tantius.  Like  the  political  reasoners  of  the  French 
Revolution,  he  cuts  his  constitution  out  of  whole 
cloth.  Absolute  justice  shuts  out  utility.  Natural 
Law  is  the  only  law. 

The  Greek  and  the  Latin  word  for  Righteousness 
were  both  exposed  to  an  ambiguity  from  which  our 
word  is  free.  They  included  the  social  and  political 
along  with  the  individual  righteousness.  There  was 
the  same  ambiguity  or  —  if  the  expression  is  pre- 
ferred —  largeness  of  meaning  in  the  Old  Testament 
conception  of  righteousness.  In  the  New  Testament, 
also,  while  the  personal  in  its  distinction  from  the 
legal  and  social  got  its  full  rights,  yet,  by  reason  of 
the  central  position  taken  by  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  the  individual  righteousness  is  not  separated 
from  the  social,  as  it  is  with  us.  The  result  of  the  am- 
biguity is  plainly  seen  in  the  Latin  Fathers.  Right- 
eousness before  God  and  rectitude,  legal  rectitude  in 
all  social  relations,  are  lumped  together.  For  example, 
Tertullian,  arguing  for  the  identity  between  the  God  of 


Il8  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

creation  and  the  God  of  the  New  Testament,  empha- 
sizes the  continuity  between  the  Law  of  Nature  and 
the  Gospel.25  Since  he  lacked  the  assistance  of  the 
idea  of  evolution  which  enables  us  to  reverence  the 
past,  without  either  making  it  a  dumping-ground  for 
our  opinions  or  sacrificing  to  it  our  own  individu- 
ality, it  is  easy  to  guess  how  far  he  would  go  in  read- 
ing back  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  into  the  so-called 
Law  of  Nature,  and  how  little  standing-ground  would 
be  left  for  the  so-called  positive  law. 

Lactantius  says  that  while  Justice  includes  all  vir- 
tues at  once,  there  are  two  chief  virtues  that  cannot 
be  kept  away  from  it,  —  piety  and  equity.26  This 
would  find  its  parallel  in  the  thought  of  a  lawyer  of 
our  day  who  should  resolve  all  law  into  equity  and 
then  identify  equity  with  the  New  Testament  code  of 
ethics.  In  the  light  of  such  theory  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  the  main  color  of  most  of  the  state  laws  that 
came  within  the  ken  of  Lactantius  was  deep  black. 

Ambrose  says  :  "The  foundation  of  Justice  is  faith. 
.  .  .  Christ  is  the  object  of  faith  to  all.  The  Church 
is  as  it  were  the  outward  form  of  justice,  she  is  the  com- 
mon right  of  all."  27  The  Church  the  common  right  of 
all.  Striking  and  pregnant  do  those  words  appear, 
when  we  consider  that  the  Church  is  to  become  inde- 
pendent of  the  State,  and  that  the  text  for  all  high 
theory  is  the  Bible. 

Finally  Eusebius  clearly  shows  how  Christian  apolo- 
getic had  to  argue  in  its  plea  for  the  divine  origin  of 
Christianity.  His  argument  in  substance  is  that  the 
religion  of  the  New  Testament  is  as  old  as  creation : 
and  that  Christianity  is  identical  with  Natural  Law.28 
According  to  all,  the  sole  authority  for  the  Law  of 


iv  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  119 

Nature  is  the  omnipotent  will  of  God,  and  that  ap- 
pears to  shut  out  all  thought  of  compromise  —  so  far 
as  theory  is  concerned.  At  this  point  we  can  see 
clearly  the  result  of  the  union  between  the  Biblical 
idea  of  God,  and  the  contemporary  ideal  of  Natural 
Law.  The  vague  Stoic  phrase,  "  life  according  to 
Nature,"  became  perfectly  definite.  The  Stoics  had 
no  text-book  for  society.  Homer  made  a  very  poor 
Bible  for  a  Puritan,  even  after  allegory  had  done  its 
best  to  provide  exegetical  rose-water.  But  the  Chris- 
tianized Latin  had  a  clear,  complete,  and  sufficient 
Bible,  with  an  authoritative  cosmology  and  a  noble 
outline  of  history  running  back  to  the  very  beginning 
of  things.  Whether  the  cosmology  was  scientific, 
whether  the  history  was  authentic,  is  not  in  evidence. 
There  was  an  impassioned  belief  that  such  was  the 
case,  and  it  is  the  belief  alone  that  is  before  us.  It 
must  be  said  again  that  the  mass  of  men  are  moved 
to  noble  issues  more  by  splendid  pictures  than  by 
clear  arguments.  The  poetic  imagination  has  done 
far  more  for  the  average  will  than  the  philosophic 
reason.  It  must  be  granted,  then,  that  the  fact  that 
the  Bible  provided  the  imagination  with  a  straight 
and  well-kept  highway  back  to  the  very  day  of  crea- 
tion is  a  fact  of  great  weight  in  our  study  of  the 
connection  between  the  Graeco-Roman  conception  of 
Natural  Law  and  Christianity.  The  Puritan  in  the 
Christianized  Latin  had  a  vast  advantage  over  the 
Puritan  in  the  Stoic.  He  could  and  did  make  a 
clean  sweep  of  the  positive,  the  accidental,  the  half- 
and-half  thoughts  of  all  kinds.  Only  the  natural 
remained. 

Tatian  furnishes  us  with  a  fine  illustration  of  the 


120          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

radicalism  that  might  result.  He  carried  cosmopoli- 
tanism to  the  full  length  of  its  principle.  Because 
there  is  one  God,  there  must  be  one  polity.  There 
can  be  no  multiplicity  of  rulers.  No  more  can  there 
be  differences  in  the  standards  of  training.  Educa- 
tion must  be  absolutely  universal,  and  the  same  in 
kind  for  all  men.  There  must  not  even  be  any  dis- 
tinction of  sexes,  and  women  must  study  philosophy.29 
Few  indeed  went  so  far  as  this.  And  one  swallow 
does  not  make  a  summer.  Yet  one  robin  prophe- 
sies a  spring.  We  are  not  taking  a  census,  but  study- 
ing the  logic  of  systems.  Tatian's  radicalism  is  the 
logical  carrying  out  of  the  alliance  between  the  abso- 
lute monarchy  of  God,  as  it  is  in  the  Bible,  and  the 
Stoic  doctrine  of  Nature.  So  the  fact  that  he  stands 
practically  alone  does  not  impair  his  significance. 

It  is  true  that  the  object  upon  which  the  criticism 
of  the  Fathers  falls  is  political  and  social  life.  The 
Church  is  divine  and  unchangeable.  They  do  not 
train  their  battering-ram  upon  their  own  walls.  It 
is  also  true  that  their  criticism  of  the  political  and 
social  order  is  mostly  at  long  range.  The  Church 
was  rapidly  moving  towards  a  monastic  view  of  life ; 
and  theories  about  the  political  and  social  order  by 
men  who  stand  outside  it  are  apt  to  strike  with  the 
force  of  a  spent  ball.  But  the  soul  that  is  now  re- 
treating from  the  State  may  some  day  return,  and 
bring  these  theories  with  it. 

The  outstanding  individual,  the  definition  of  the 
universal  man  sought  for  by  antiquity,  finds  classic 
expression  in  Tertullian's  appeal  to  the  Soul  that  is  by 
nature  Christian.  His  words  carry  greater  weight  if 
we  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  they  have  a  strong 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  12 1 

family  likeness  to  the  Stoic  appeal  to  the  common 
consciousness.  He  says  :  "  I  call  in  a  new  testimony, 
yea,  one  which  is  better  known  than  all  literature, 
more  discussed  than  all  doctrine,  more  public  than  all 
publications,  greater  than  the  whole  man  —  I  mean 
all  that  is  man's.  Stand  forth,  O  Soul.  ...  I  call 
thee  not  as  when  fashioned  in  libraries,  fed  in  Attic 
academies  and  porticoes,  thou  belchest  wisdom.  I 
address  thee  simple,  rude,  uncultured,  and  untaught, 
such  as  they  have  thee  who  have  thee  only  :  that  very 
thing  of  the  road,  the  street,  the  workshop."30 

After  remarking  that  Tertullian,  like  many  another 
man  with  a  talent  for  adjectives,  sometimes  mistook 
a  handful  of  mud  for  an  argument,  —  hence  the 
word  "  belchest,"  —  it  is  to  be  observed,  first,  that  the 
words,  "  greater  than  the  whole  man,  I  mean  all  that 
is  man's,"  describe  man  in  his  essence,  apart  from  all 
his  belongings.  On  the  one  hand  the  reference  is 
to  the  elemental  man,  all  the  inherited  differences  of 
place  and  prerogative  being  stripped  off.  In  trifles 
men  differ,  in  essence  they  are  one.  On  the  other 
hand  the  reference  is  to  the  potential  man  hidden 
within  every  man  and  waiting  for  the  summoning  cry 
of  faith  to  come  forth. 

In  the  second  place  the  words,  "  as  they  have  thee 
who  have  thee  only :  that  very  thing  of  the  road,  the 
street,  the  workshop,"  give  expression  to  the  Christian 
feeling  that  the  riches  of  God  are  hidden  in  the  com- 
mon man.  Here  must  the  spirit  of  history  dig  to  find 
her  fortune ;  for  if  she  does  not  find  it  here,  she  shall 
find  it  nowhere.  The  possibility  of  full  likeness  to  God 
is  stored  up  in  the  man  of  the  road  and  the  workshop. 
Philosophy  had  a  doctrine  very  like  this  in  principle, 


122          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

—  the  doctrine  concerning  the  microcosm,  man  being 
accounted  as  the  universe  writ  small.  But  the  doctrine 
could  not  compare,  in  scope  and  driving  power,  with 
the  Christian  teaching  concerning  man  as  made  in  the 
image  of  God.  The  latter  recognized  none  of  the  dis- 
tinctions that  loomed  so  large  before  the  eyes  of  phi- 
losophy, and  sought,  in  the  most  aggressive  way,  to 
make  its  doctrine  the  small  change  of  debate. 

On  this  subject  Tertullian  is  representative.  All 
the  apologetes  worked  the  same  vein.  Adversaries 
like  Celsus  reproached  them  for  trying  to  make  free 
spirits  out  of  common  clay.  To  entrust  the  deepest 
secrets  of  the  faith,  the  inmost  mysteries  of  divine 
knowledge,  to  carpenters,  slaves,  and  swineherds,  was 
like  trying  to  shut  up  the  blessed  sun  in  a  kitchen. 

But  the  apologetes  gloried  in  their  philosophical 
shame.  Tertullian  says :  "  There  is  not  a  Christian 
workman  but  finds  out  God,  and  manifests  Him  .  .  . 
though  Plato  affirms  that  it  is  far  from  easy  to  discover 
the  maker  of  the  universe ;  and  when  He  is  found,  it 
is  difficult  to  make  Him  known  to  all."31  The  lowest 
men  were  believed  to  be  capable  of  entering  into  the 
highest  things.  Compare  the  feeling  of  Plato  in  the 
passage  from  the  Timceus  just  quoted  by  Tertullian. 
Compare  also  the  Stoics.  Their  undeniable  likeness 
in  respect  of  ethics  to  the  Christians  serves  to  bring 
out  more  clearly  the  contrast.  They  were,  at  best, 
half-hearted  in  their  estimate  of  the  common  man. 
The  Christians  were  whole-hearted.  The  common 
man,  the  unit  of  measure  for  the  Catholic  Church, 
was  given  full  suffrage  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Surely,  universal  suffrage  in  things  divine  must 
eventually  have  a  bearing  upon  suffrage  in  things 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  123 

human.  However  otherworldly  any  set  of  ideals 
may  be,  in  the  long  run  that  which  is  highest  in 
thought  must  turn  out  to  be  deepest  in  being.  The 
ideal  must  become  actual  and  the  rational  real,  under 
pain  of  losing  their  rational  and  ideal  character.  In 
times  of  crisis,  there  are  lifted  up  above  the  level  of 
contemporary  politics  conceptions  which  it  is  the  task 
of  centuries  to  carry  out.  So  was  it  with  that  great 
crisis  in  the  world's  history  which  ended  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity.  The  conception  of  the  ele- 
mental man,  as  carrying  his  own  value  within  himself, 
because  in  covenant  with  the  Eternal,  looked  out  over 
society  and  the  State,  with  prophecy  of  a  far  future. 

The  elemental  man  has  his  worth  assessed  in  terms 
of  indestructible  being  and  is  endowed  with  immor- 
tality. It  is  not  an  immortality  like  that  of  Homer, 
where  there  is  something  like  immutability  of  func- 
tion, almost  a  "moral  stratification  of  persons,"  the 
servant  on  this  side  death  continuing  as  servant  on 
the  other;  where  also  the  total  gain  of  life  on  the 
other  side  is  so  slight  that  it  does  not  command  the 
imagination.  Nor  is  the  doctrine  like  that  in  Egypt, 
where  life  on  the  other  side  has  high  color  and  yet 
retains  the  aristocratic  caste,  since  the  King  alone  is 
the  Son  of  the  great  God.  Nor,  again,  is  the  belief 
like  that  of  India,  where  the  doctrine  of  transmigra- 
tion, by  bringing  the  animal  and  the  visible  too  close 
to  the  ethical,  makes  it  very  difficult  for  the  latter  to 
be  disentangled.  Nor,  finally,  is  it  like  the  primitive 
belief  in  immortality,  as  it  still  holds  in  China,  the 
individual  as  such  having  no  worth  of  his  own  but 
going  to  swell  the  dignity  of  the  family.  The 
Christian  doctrine  gives  perfect  equality  in  death. 


124  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

Amongst  the  multitude  of  inscriptions  from  the  cata- 
combs not  one  has  yet  been  found  that  records  the 
burial  of  a  slave  or  a  freedman,  although  beyond 
doubt  a  large  part  of  those  whose  bodies  were  buried 
there  belonged  to  one  or  the  other  of  those  classes.  The 
Christian  slave  was  buried  not  as  a  slave,  but  as  a  man. 
Besides,  the  individual  as  an  individual  is  endowed 
with  immortality.  He  belongs  to  nobody  but  himself 
and  God.  And  this  entire  right  over  himself,  ex- 
pressed in  the  language  that  has  most  effect  upon 
the  average  imagination,  —  in  terms  of  everlasting- 
ness,  —  along  with  the  perfect  equality  that  wipes  out 
all  differences  between  class  and  class,  makes  the 
Christian  belief  in  immortality  cognate  to  ethical 
monotheism,  in  its  influence  upon  social  structure. 
Monotheism  puts  the  world  in  the  service  of  God. 
Immortality  makes  the  common  man  indispensable 
to  God.  The  handworker,  being  immortal,  is  quite 
as  immortal  as  the  man  with  a  hundred  grandfathers. 
So  far  as  the  prerogatives  of  life  on  the  other  side 
are  concerned,  he  stands  level  with  the  Emperor. 
This  feeling  comes  out  nobly  in  words  like  Tertul- 
lian's  :  "  The  thing  we  must  not  do  to  an  emperor, 
we  must  not  do  any  one  else."  ^  This  suggests  that 
the  estate  of  the  laborer,  bestowed  on  him  by  the 
dogma  of  immortality,  is  not  wholly  in  Spain.  And 
the  suggestion  is  turned  into  a  demonstration  by  the 
administration  of  the  Christian  sacraments.  Baptism 
was  one  and  the  same  for  all  men.  It  was  the  pledge 
of  spiritual  equality.33  The  Lord's  Supper  provided 
one  bread  for  all.  The  two  sacraments  together 
published  to  the  world  daily  the  belief  that  in  the 
presence  of  the  absolute  good,  the  things  that  sepa- 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  125 

rate  the  privileged  and  the  unprivileged  man  are  as 
nothing. 

Of  a  piece  with  the  doctrine  of  immortality  in  its 
effect  on  the  dignity  of  the  common  man  was  the 
doctrine  of  Providence.  Here,  again,  the  Christian 
doctrine  was  like  the  Stoic;  but  the  unlikeness  was 
far  more  fundamental  than  the  likeness.  The  Stoic 
doctrine  halted  and  hesitated.  The  Christian  doc- 
trine was  unfaltering  and  tireless.  It  was  thought 
that  a  personal  Providence  watched  over  the  doings 
and  happenings  of  the  humblest  soul.  That  he  should 
be  guilty  of  the  smallest  sin,  or  that  the  slightest  evil 
should  befall  him,  was  accounted  matter  of  serious 
import  to  the  Almighty.  It  was  as  if  the  highway 
of  the  universe  were  made  to  run  through  the  heart 
of  humanity,  and,  consequently,  all  the  resources  of 
the  universe  spent  to  keep  the  road  in  repair.  Taine 
expresses  wonderment  that  the  English  and  Ameri- 
cans could  so  interest  themselves  in  a  book  like  The 
Wide,  Wide  World,  the  story  of  what  went  on  in 
a  young  girl's  heart,  drawn  out  through  three  vol- 
umes. The  explanation  of  it  is  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  Providence  in  its  Protestant  form.  The  whole 
effect  of  the  doctrine  in  general  was  to  make  Chris- 
tians of  every  degree  take  themselves  with  profound 
seriousness.  Here  was  a  striking  contrast  with  the 
heathenism  of  the  Empire.  The  dignity  of  the  inner 
life  of  the  lowly  was  asserted  with  incomparably 
greater  authority  and  power  of  appeal. 

When  the  Church  conquered  the  Empire,  the  citi- 
zen had  gone  off  the  stage  of  the  higher  life.  The 
man  had  come ;  not  man  in  terms  of  the  terrestrial 
order,  although  some  day  he  may  re-enter  that  order, 


126          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

carrying  with  him  the  spiritual  capital  for  wider  and 
deeper  relationships.  This  is  the  answer  to  one  of 
the  demands  that  antiquity  made  upon  the  Church. 
The  elemental  man  is  clearly  conceived  and  explicitly 
stated. 

The  other  demand  was  a  sufficient  driving  power  to 
force  the  definition  down,  in  theory,  through  the  low- 
est stratum  of  society.  The  answer  to  this  demand 
was  a  jealous,  aggressive  religion,  rapidly  building  up 
a  vast  system  of  dogma  on  the  basis  of  infallibility, 
and  brooking  no  rivals.  Heathenism  was  tolerant. 
There  was  always  room  for  one  more  God  in  the  Pan- 
theon. This  easy-going  tolerance  might,  from  some 
points  of  view,  be  accounted  a  virtue.  But  so  far  as 
our  subject  is  concerned  it  simply  meant  the  lack  of 
leverage.  Good-natured  syncretism  and  elastic  eclec- 
ticism are  always  the  front  door  of  scepticism.  They 
go  along  with  a  lack  of  clear  dogma  concerning  the  un- 
seen foundation  of  experience,  and  with  a  woful  want 
of  certitude  and  positive  conviction.  Only  a  reli- 
gion possessing  entire  certitude  and  claiming  absolute 
verity  could  answer  the  second  demand  of  antiq- 
uity. And  in  this  connection  it  is  worthy  of 
remark  that  the  religion  of  the  Bible  was  the  first 
to  make  dogmatic  instruction  an  essential  part  of 
religion.  Primitive  religion  never  dreamed  of  such 
a  thing.  Its  whole  capital  was  ritual.  But  mono- 
theism, by  deepening  and  clarifying  self-conciousness 
and  by  rooting  individuality  in  God,  makes  dogma 
more  important  than  ritual.  Hence  the  growth  of 
the  catechism  in  the  Jewish  and  Christian  churches. 
And  hence  the  educational  significance,  for  the 
masses  of  the  people,  of  the  unitary  idea  of  God. 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  127 

The  two  answers  taken  together  gave  a  great  lift 
to  the  market  value  of  the  common  man.  This 
shows  itself  in  the  new  value  set  on  human  life. 
The  exposure  of  children  and  abortion  were  common 
heathen  practices.  The  Church  treated  them  both 
as  murder.  Suicide  was  invested  with  romantic  in- 
terest. Socrates  had  condemned  it  on  the  ground  of 
loyalty  to  Athens.  But  patriotism  as  a  motive  had 
lost  well-nigh  all  its  power.  The  Empire  found  noth- 
ing to  put  in  its  place.  The  Church  however  re- 
placed it  with  the  infinite  worth  of  humanity  as  made 
in  the  image  of  the  Eternal.  Suicide  was  accounted 
a  deadly  sin.  To  overcome  the  romantic  charm  with 
which  it  had  been  clothed,  it  was  treated  as  if  worse 
than  murder.  The  use  of  the  Burial  Service  was 
forbidden.  Consecrated  ground  refused  entrance  to 
the  suicide's  body ;  and  eventually  the  canon  law 
and  afterwards  the  civil  law  commanded  that  the 
body,  a  stake  having  been  driven  through  the  breast, 
should  be  buried  at  the  place  where  roads  met,  in 
order  that  every  common  thing  might  walk  over  it. 
Again,  the  Church  set  her  face  like  a  flint  against 
the  gladiatorial  games.  It  was  to  the  credit  of 
Greece  that  they  never  won  favor  in  that  part  of 
the  Empire.  Yet  no  public  voice  condemned  them. 
Cicero,  Seneca,  might  dislike  them,  but  even  they 
and  their  peers  never  spoke  out.  And  there  was  no 
public  opinion  whatever  against  them.  But  Athen- 
agoras  expressed  the  common  Christian  feeling  when 
he  said  :  "  To  see  a  man  put  to  death  is  much  the 
same  as  killing  him."34  The  very  moment  the 
Church  had  power,  the  games  were  put  an  end  to. 
Reverence  for  humanity  was  to  be  the  supreme  law. 


128  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

In  this  way  is  completed  that  definition  of  the  uni- 
versal individual  on  which  antiquity  had  been  labor- 
ing. A  man  is  moralized  when  the  highest  existing 
organism  of  terrestrial  life  recognizes  itself  in  him. 
The  Catholic  Church,  looming  above  the  State,  was 
the  highest  organization  of  ideal  life.  And  the 
Church,  or,  better,  the  ideal  humanity  speaking 
through  her,  saw  its  total  self  in  the  slave  at  work 
in  the  fields ;  yea,  even  in  the  unborn  babe  within 
the  womb  of  the  slave  woman.  Nor  is  this  mere 
theory;  for  it  rapidly  passed  into  discipline  and  canon 
law,  and  canon  law  was  to  have  a  profound  influence 
upon  the  law  of  modern  States.  This  reverence  for 
humanity  has,  therefore,  the  same  importance  in  the 
history  of  the  idea  of  society,  that  the  scientific  dis- 
covery of  the  infinitely  little  has  in  the  history  of 
thought.  If  Plato  were  thinking  out  his  thoughts 
to-day,  his  ideal  would  be  deeply  affected  by  the 
microscope;  because  the  microscope  has  widened 
the  range  of  idealism,  by  increasing  for  the  mind 
the  capacity  of  phenomena  to  contain  and  carry  the 
supreme  idea,  —  law.  In  precisely  the  same  way  did 
the  discovery  of  essential  humanity  in  the  unborn 
babe  of  a  slave  woman  —  so  that  abortion  on  the 
lowest  level  of  society  was  considered  a  deadly  sin  — 
mean  great  things  for  the  idea  of  society,  seeing  that 
wherever  humanity  is  discovered,  thither  must  the 
social  law  ultimately  extend  itself.  A  practical  ex- 
ample is  found  in  the  history  of  Factory  Legislation 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  mainspring  of  the 
whole  movement  has  been  not  the  economic  but  the 
humanitarian  motive.  So,  new  rights  of  labor  were 
wrapped  up  in  that  reverence  for  humanity  which 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  129 

Christianity  made  part  and  parcel  of  higher  Euro- 
pean feeling. 

The  highest,  the  common  good  is  individuality. 
We  are  considering  the  contributions  of  antiquity  to 
the  campaign  for  the  enlargement  of  the  area  of  that 
common  good.  Greece  and  Rome  made  great  gains 
for  the  cause.  The  Church  separated  from  the  State, 
and  housing  the  outstanding  individual,  capitalized 
the  gains  of  Greece  and  Rome  while  indefinitely  in- 
creasing them  by  means  of  an  aggressive  monothe- 
ism. And  although  the  separation  of  the  Church 
from  the  State  drew  the  conscience  out  of  society,  yet 
the  Church  was  never  so  monasticized  that  she  did 
not  keep  one  foot  firmly  planted  in  the  world.  There- 
fore the  gift  of  the  Church  to  the  cause  of  labor,  its 
universalistic  conception  of  humanity,  was  not  bought 
by  bare  negation.  Windelband  says  well :  "  It  is  the 
essence  of  the  Christian  conception  of  the  world  that 
it  regards  the  Person  and  the  relations  of  Persons  as 
the  essence  of  reality."35  It  is  this  deep  sense  of  the 
solid  reality  of  the  human  individual  that  equipped 
the  Church  for  the  work  of  shaping  the  raw  mate- 
rials of  modernity,  and  assisting  at  the  birth  of  great 
States.  Here,  once  more,  the  parallel  with  that  other 
great  religion  of  redemption,  Buddhism,  is  instruc- 
tive. Buddhism  fully  rivals  Christianity  in  the  nurt- 
ure of  the  gentler  virtues.  But  the  price  it  pays  for 
power  in  this  direction  is  a  heavy  one,  no  less  than 
the  loss  of  capacity  for  state-building. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons,  if  not  the  main  reason, 
for  the  failure  of  Buddhism  in  its  birthplace.  It  is 
indeed  true  that  there  was  no  great  enduring  empire 
in  India,  like  Rome,  to  crush  out  tribal  distinctions, 


130  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

along  with  the  castes  built  upon  them,  and  so  build 
a  road  that  should  afford  easy  progress  to  the  Bud- 
dhist doctrine  of  equality.  But  another  and  deeper 
reason  lies  in  the  nature  of  Buddhism  itself.  Its 
doctrine  of  equality  has  its  root  in  pessimism  and  il- 
lusionism,  in  the  belief  that  all  phenomena,  the  social 
and  political  order  included,  are  unreality,  are  noth- 
ing. But  it  is  plain  that  no  State  was  ever  founded, 
or  can  be  perpetuated  by  such  a  doctrine.  The 
Aryans  who  conquered  the  Punjaub  had  the  Homeric 
pride  of  race.  The  Anglo-Saxons,  wherever  they 
have  gone  on  their  mission  of  conquest,  have  carried 
the  same  spirit,  often  brutal  but  always  masterful. 
It  shows  its  brutality  in  the  Englishman  who  calls 
a  Hindoo  gentleman  "nigger,"  and  in  the  American 
frontiersman  who  accounts  the  dead  Indian  the  only 
good  one.  The  story  of  its  masterfulness,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  written  all  over  the  world.  Now  the 
Hindoo  caste  system  had  at  least  this  merit,  that  it 
kept  alive  the  feeling  of  self-respect  and  dignity,  and 
so  trained  men  who  could  mightily  endure,  long  after 
they  had  lost  the  art  of  conquering.  States  are  born 
not  of  the  sense  of  nothingness  but  of  the  sense  of 
worth.  The  conquest  of  conscience  is  not  enough. 
The  earth  also  must  be  conquered.  The  mystical 
and  brooding  reason  gives  the  peace  of  the  inner  life. 
But  the  Pax  Romana,  the  ordered,  growing  life  of 
law,  can  alone  give  that  steady  self-possession  of 
society  which  is  the  escape  from  barbarism.  The 
ecstasies  of  contemplation  are  dearly  bought,  if  they 
undo  the  working  and  governing  will.  No  doctrine 
of  equality  that  is  built  on  pessimism  can  assist  in 
the  birth  and  breeding  of  free  States. 


iv  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  131 

A  religion  that  is  to  play  the  part  persistently  and 
well,  and  so  help  steer  the  fortunes  of  our  race 
towards  the  democratic  ideal,  must  reach  the  doctrine 
of  equality  not  by  levelling  down,  but  by  levelling 
up.  It  must  retain  the  solid  sense  of  worth  and 
personal  dignity,  that  has  distinguished  every  effi- 
cient race,  and  at  the  same  time  put  the  ground  of 
pride  under  the  feet  of  the  man  at  the  bottom. 
Christianity  does  this  thoroughly  in  idea,  and  always 
more  or  less  in  practice.  By  the  conception  of  God 
as  Personal,  as  a  Holy  Will,  aggressive,  creating,  and 
dominating,  it  makes  out-and-out  quietism  on  any 
great  scale  impossible.  Where  the  prime  thought  is 
not  man's  search  for  God,  but  God's  search  for  man, 
the  ascetic  ideal  cannot  go  the  full  length  of  its  rope; 
since  it  follows  from  that  thought  that  God  can  and 
does  come  out  of  Himself  and  draws  near  to  the 
practical  man,  the  man  whose  pith  is  will  rather  than 
meditation.  In  His  office  of  Great  Companion  He 
is  not  shut  up  with  the  monk  in  his -cell,  but  is  inti- 
mate with  the  peasant.  And  since  the  central  ele- 
ment in  the  conception  of  God  is  forthgoing  and 
redeeming  will,  there  is  no  question  but  it  must 
become  sooner  or  later  the  central  element  in  the 
conception  of  man.  Monastic  mysticism  can  play  a 
noble  preparatory  part  in  Christianity ;  but,  until  the 
Bible  is  destroyed,  it  cannot  become  an  all-organizing 
principle. 

The  Biblical  idea  of  God  and  man  creates  a  sense 
of  individuality  deeper  and  more  persistent  than  that 
of  Homer's  heroes,  and  at  the  same  time  puts  the 
standing-ground  of  pride  under  the  feet  of  the  down- 
most.  It  accomplishes  this  through  its  doctrine  of 


132          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAT. 

sin  and  grace.  That  the  consciousness  of  sin  is 
a  great  leveller,  witness  its  growth  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Empire  and  its  connection  with  cosmopolitan- 
ism of  the  Stoical  type,  and  with  the  deepening  sense 
of  equality  in  essential  things.  It  is  impossible  to 
read  Epictetus  without  seeing  that  the  two  were  in 
organic  relation.  Of  course  what  we  call  the  sense 
of  sin  may  be  a  very  mixed  affair.  External  mis- 
fortunes, personal  failure,  a  succession  of  bad  crops, 
may  make  their  contribution  to  it.  That  however  is 
not  our  concern ;  for  we  are  dealing  with  its  effects, 
not  its  causes.  And  there  can  be  no  question  that 
the  growth  of  the  consciousness  of  sin  in  the  Empire 
betokened  the  undermining  of  the  ancient  aristocra- 
cies. The  Manual  of  Epictetus,  the  Enchiridion  of 
Seneca,  the  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  justify 
the  opinion.  They  all  agree  that  for  all  men,  the 
beginning  of  wisdom  is  the  profound  sense  of  one's 
weakness  and  faultiness.  And  upon  that  ground 
there  is  no  distinction  of  persons. 

An  amusing  illustration  of  the  anti-aristocratic 
bent  of  the  sense  of  sin  occurs  in  the  life  of  Lady 
Huntington.  The  Duchess  of  Buckingham  attended 
her  chapel  at  Bath.  Afterwards,  feeling  that  she 
had  been  entrapped  into  doing  an  indecent  thing, 
she  wrote  to  Lady  Huntington,  to  express  her  horror 
that  she  should  associate  her  high  birth  with  Tom, 
Dick,  and  Harry  in  groanings  over  sin.  "  It  is 
monstrous  to  be  told  you  have  a  heart  as  the  common 
wretches  that  crawl  on  the  earth.  This  is  highly 
offensive  and  insulting  and  I  cannot  but  wonder  that 
your  ladyship  should  relish  any  sentiments  so  much 
at  variance  with  high  rank  and  good  breeding."  A 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  133 

serious  illustration  is  found  in  a  recent  book  by 
Nietzsche  upon  the  genealogy  of  the  moral  sense. 
He  argues  that  the  source  of  the  sin-consciousness 
is  in  the  powerlessness  and  resentment  of  the  worth- 
less and  inefficient.  The  weak  majority  thus  en- 
deavor to  undermine  the  power  of  the  efficient  and 
successful  minority.36  The  sense  of  sin  is  an  implicit 
defence  of  the  rights  of  the  weak. 

The  Stoics  did  not  however  succeed  in  driving  the 
sense  of  sin  deep  down.  Both  the  Greek  and  the 
Roman  were  proud  of  their  virtue.  Seneca  affirms 
that  in  one  thing  the  wise  man  outdoes  God  Himself, 
for  while  God  owes  it  to  His  nature  that  He  fears 
nothing,  the  wise  man  owes  it  solely  to  himself.37 
"We  justly  boast,"  says  Cicero,  "of  our  own  virtue, 
which  we  could  not  do  if  we  derived  it  from  the 
Deity  and  not  from  ourselves."38  The  Stoics  wrote 
often  concerning  the  proper  frame  of  mind  in  which 
to  face  death.  But  in  their  thoughts  "  repentance 
for  past  sin  had  absolutely  no  place."39 

The  thought  of  sin,  pressed  home,  is  an  attack 
upon  the  aristocratic  principle.  And  Christianity 
presses  it  home.  The  emphasis  on  sin  was  one  of  the 
things  that  distinguished  Israel  amongst  the  peoples 
of  antiquity.  The  New  Testament,  inheriting  this 
emphasis,  greatly  increased  it.  The  whole  body  of 
ideas  contained  in  it  centres  in  the  death  of  Christ 
and  its  relation  to  sin.  And  so,  when  the  higher 
life  of  the  Empire  went  into  the  Church,  its  own 
feeling  of  sin  was  intensified.  The  monotheistic  idea 
dug  a  single  channel  for  it  to  flow  in.  The  Person 
of  Christ  made  the  channel  yet  deeper.  To  be  truly 
a  Christian  was  to  know  in  one's  heart  that,  whatever 


134  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE        CHAP. 

one's  inheritance  from  an  aristocracy  whether  of  birth 
or  culture,  one  did  not  win  thereby  the  least  footing 
before  God. 

It  may  seem  like  a  joke  to  say  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  Fall  enriched  humanity.  But  it  is  sober  fact. 
Dogberry  desires  the  complete  description  of  his  con- 
dition to  contain  the  important  item  that  he  is  "  a  fel- 
low that  hath  had  losses."  Dogberry's  word  is  not 
sterling  in  philosophy,  yet  this  remark  is  weighty. 
The  memory  of  former  high  estate  is  more  enriching 
than  a  comfortable  living  well  in  hand.  The  past  is 
secure.  It  is  also  a  free  field  for  the  idealizing  forces 
of  our  nature  to  work  upon.  The  Christian  dogma 
of  the  Fall  made  the  common  humanity  rich,  because 
it  declared  that  a  splendid  estate  of  God-likeness  and 
spiritual  equality  between  the  lowest  man  and  the 
highest  had  once  been  held  in  fee  by  every  man.  Its 
full  significance  becomes  more  apparent,  if  we  com- 
pare it  with  the  doctrine  that  took  its  place  in  the 
philosophy  of  religion  outside  Christianity.  In  every 
case,  it  was  dualism.  Wherever  in  antiquity  men 
outside  the  Bible  thought  deeply  and  long  about  the 
interests  of  the  inner  life,  one  or  another  form  of 
dualism  resulted. 

JsTow  dualism,  in  relation  to  the  history  of  the  so- 
cial question,  involves  two  things.  First,  it  means 
that  the  world  in  time  and  space  is  not  wholly  mate- 
rial for  the  redeeming  will  and  can  never  become  such, 
a  larger  or  smaller  part  of  it  being  given  over  to  the 
enemy.  At  this  point  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  is  in 
radical  opposition  to  dualism,  because  it  declares  that 
the  viciousness  which  seems  to  be  ingrained  in  the 
constitution  of  society  is  due  in  no  degree  to  the  in- 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 


135 


Jierent  nature  of  matter  itself,  but  has  resulted  from 
actsToflmman  will.  What  the  will  has  done,  the  will 
—  not  man's  will,  but  God's  —  can  undo.  Secondly, 
dualism  means  that  man  can  be  saved  only  by  aban- 
doning some  part  of  his  equipment.  The  part  aban- 
doned is  sure  to  be  the  body.  Hence  dualism  draws 
after  it  a  more  or  less  complete  abandonment  of  the 
citizen's  life  to  the  powers  of  evil.  The  dogma  of 
the  Fall  sets  itself  against  dualism  at  this  point  also. 
For  when  logically  taken,  it  declares  the  whole  of 
man's  nature  to  be  in  the  same  bad  plight.  There 
is  no  part  of  him  that  is  immaculate,  while  his  body 
plays  scapegoat.  His  total  self  is  flawed  from  top 
to  bottom. 

The  dogma  of  the  Fall  is  in  harmony  with  the  con- 
ception of  God  as  Will,  and  helps  to  make  possible 
a  monistic  anthropology.  That  we  men  of  the  evo- 
lutionary creed  can  express  this  without  the  aid  of 
the  dogma  is  not,  for  present  purposes,  to  be  either 
affirmed  or  denied.  It  is  certainly  possible  that  we 
may  be  expecting  too  much  of  the  evolutionary  view ; 
and  it  is  even  probable  that  when  the  first  flush  of  our 
youthful  enthusiasm  has  cooled,  some  of  our  old  foes 
may  return  to  the  assault.  But  whether  this  is  so  or 
not,  it  remains  certain  that,  the  mental  and  historical 
conditions  being  what  they  were,  the  dogma  of  the 
Fall  was  much  superior,  for  sociologic  development, 
to  any  and  every  form  of  dualism.  If  it  be  a  myth, 
it  is  a  myth  created  by  the  Biblical  estimate  of 
humanity's  capacity  for  future  perfection  set  against 
the  dark  background  of  what  man  now  is.  And  let 
it  be  remembered  that  to  the  Biblical  estimate  of 
humanity  aristocratic  and  inherited  distinctions  are 


136  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

« 

trifles  lighter  than  air.  So  the  dogma  of  the  Fall  is 
social  universalism  on  its  night  side. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Fall  connects  with  the  doctrine 
of  Grace,  as  man's  necessity  connects  with  God's 
opportunity.  The  Christian  is  never  born  a  Christian, 
but  always  made  one.  In  the  Old  Testament  God  is 
not  related  to  Israel  as  the  God  of  the  primitive  tribe 
was  related  to  the  tribe.  He  is  not  bound  by  a  tie  of 
nature,  but  all  depends  on  His  own  free  choice. 
Israel  is  therefore  historically  a  sort  of  creation  out 
of  nothing.  Hence  the  ground  of  natural  pride  is 
cut  from  under  man's  feet.  And  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment the  root  of  all  heresy  is  to  suppose  that  one  has 
any  merit  of  his  own  (i  Cor.  iv.  6).  Humility  is  not 
so  much  a  virtue  as  the  vital  breath  of  all  virtues. 
The  single  ground  of  pride  is  God.  But  when  the 
Christian  finds  himself  in  God,  he  finds  his  lowliest 
neighbor  alongside  him.  He  himself  is  an  indi- 
vidual and  counts  for  one  in  his  own  sight  by 
reason  of  Christ's  handiwork  and  that  alone.  He 
is  false  to  Christ,  denying  the  unity  and  monarchy 
of  God,  unless  he  believes  that,  so  far  as  natural 
equipment  goes,  so  far  as  all  that  he  inherits  from 
ancestry  is  concerned,  the  lowliest  human  being  has 
as  good  a  claim  as  he  upon  God,  the  same  right  to 
individuality. 

The  radical  sense  of  sin  that  Christianity  brought 
into  Europe  is  consequently  a  great  achievement.  It 
is  such  for  the  individual.  No  man  of  our  breed  and 
culture  can  possibly  look  upon  his  own  life  with  the 
self-satisfaction  natural  to  the  Greek  and  Roman. 
For,  thanks  to  Christianity,  it  has  become  almost  an 
instinct  with  us  to  measure  ourselves  not  by  ourselves, 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  137 

and  not  by  our  neighbors,  but  by  God,  by  the  infinite 
good.40  It  is  such  for  the  history  of  society.  What 
is  bred  in  the  bone  of  the  individual  must  eventually 
show  itself  in  the  blood  of  society.  Here  also  there 
will  appear  some  day  the  same  passion  for  compar- 
ing one's  self  with  the  perfect.  The  doctrine  of  sin 
is  cognate  to  the  Biblical  conception  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

The  aristocratic  view  of  life  was  in  principle  un- 
dermined. No  form  of  dualism  can  accomplish  that 
work;  for  while  it  may  achieve  a  doctrine  of 
equality,  the  price  paid  is  that  the  civic  world,  the 
laborer's  world,  loses  its  sacredness.  And  since  that 
world  must  be  continued  in  existence,  to  the  end  that 
the  wild  beasts  may  not  eat  up  the  saint,  or  the  food- 
supply  fail,  before  his  process  of  self-mortification  is 
happily  completed,  the  result  is  sure  to  be  that 
sanctity  becomes  a  specialty  ;  so  that  the  political  and 
social  order  lacks  the  direct  service  of  the  best  men 
and  women.  But  the  consistent  Christian  view  un- 
dermines the  aristocratic  principle  not  by  degrading 
history,  but  by  exalting  the  capacity  and  work  of  the 
common  humanity.  The  patristic  view  was  very  far 
indeed  from  being  the  consistent  Christian  view. 
Yet  it  successfully  naturalized  in  the  Occident  the 
thoroughly  Christian  conception  of  individuality  as 
being  the  pith  and  marrow  of  reality.  No  theory 
of  illusion  weakens  it.  It  is  stanch  and  solid.  The 
whole  nature  of  God  guarantees  it.  And  the  nature 
of  any  one  man,  no  matter  how  low  his  social  stand- 
ing, was  by  the  Church's  creed  just  as  rich  in  the 
possibilities  of  eternal  individuality  as  the  nature  of 
any  other  man,  no  matter  how  high  his  standing.  The 


138  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

presence  of  an  immortal  "  soul "  in  every  man  gave 
him  in  theory  a  transcendent  yalue. 

The  theory  did  not  stay  in  the  air.  That  it  had 
power  to  move  the  will  and  mould  institutions,  the 
Church's  system  of  charities  plainly  proves ;  for  the 
system  had  its  root  in  this  new  estimate  of  the  spirit- 
ual capacity  of  the  common  man.  Not  in  the  bulk  of 
Christian  charities  during  the  first  four  centuries  and 
not  in  their  novelty  is  found  the  key  to  their  connec- 
tion with  the  history  of  the  social  question.  Judaism 
after  the  Exile  did  the  pioneer  work  in  this  as  in  many 
other  matters.  Jewish  and  Christian  charities  grow 
out  of  one  principle  and  are  therefore  parts  of  one 
story.  The  contrast  is  with  the  heathen  world. 

In  the  Empire  the  long  prevalence  of  peace  and 
the  banishment  of  war  to  far-distant  frontiers  gave 
neighborliness  a  chance  to  develop.  Private  gener- 
osity did  some  notable  things ;  and  it  was  far  out- 
done by  imperial  paternalism.  The  political  situation 
at  Rome  forced  on  the  authorities,  almost  at  the  point 
of  the  sword,  the  conviction  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  State  to  see  to  it  somehow  that  its  citizens  got  a 
living.  The  nobler  emperors  spent  money  freely  and 
often  wisely  in  behalf  of  their  people.  The  picture 
of  Trajan  amongst  the  orphan  children  he  had  taken 
care  of  shows  how  greatly  tenderness  and  sympathy 
had  deepened.  It  is  true  that  even  in  bulk  the  im- 
perial largess  was  outdone  by  the  private  generosity 
of  Christians ;  for  in  the  records  of  the  Church  there 
are  many  instances  of  men  and  women  giving  the 
whole  of  large  fortunes  to  schools,  orphanages,  and 
hospitals.  And  when  the  census  of  all  the  work  done 
by  the  Church  in  this  quarter  during  the  first  four 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  139 

centuries   is   taken,  the   work   of   the    Empire    both 
private  and  official  is  put  wholly  in  the  shade. 

Yet  it  is  not  by  their  bulk  so  much  as  by  their  prin- 
ciple that  the  Christian  charities  make  a  great  figure 
in  the  history  of  the  social  idea.  The  imperial  lar- 
gess went  to  the  well-born,  or  at  least  to  the  middle 
class  —  in  a  word,  to  citizens.  Their  root  was  not  a 
consistent  humanitarianism,  but  was  largely  political, 
the  aim  being  to  stave  off  the  decay  of  the  citizen 
class.41  The  Christian  foundations  and  endowments 
on  the  contrary  looked  to  all  mankind.  The  only 
hospitals  the  Empire  knew  were  for  the  benefit  of 
soldiers  or  the  slaves  of  rich  landowners.42  Christian 
hospitals  were  for  all  classes  and  all  nations.  The 
difference  of  principle  comes  out  strikingly  in  the 
contrast  between  the  Christian  and  the  heathen 
clubs.  The  latter  were  mutual  insurance  societies  of 
a  social  nature.  The  former  were  designed  for  the 
same  end,  but  they  always  gave  alms  to  the  poor. 
This  indicates  that  giving  to  the  poor  is  a  constitu- 
tional element  in  the  Christian  view  of  the  world. 
And  this  is  frankly  expressed  in  the  liturgy,  the 
offertory  for  the  poor  becoming  an  integral  part  of 
the  Eucharistic  service.  Gifts  to  the  poor  thus 
became  for  the  first  time  an  organic  part  of  the  high- 
est worship.  The  cause  of  the  poor  was  symboli- 
cally laid  on  the  altar.  And  this  for  the  reason  that 
the  idea  of  God  was  inseparable  from  the  ideal  of 
man.  The  principle  out  of  which  charities  grew  was 
reverence  for  humanity  at  large,  humanity  as  it  is  in 
God.  Charity,  when  it  became  a  popular  habit,  was 
undoubtedly  vulgarized.  A  common  phrase  in  wills 
and  deeds  of  a  later  day  conveying  property  to 


140  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Church  uses  was  "for  the  healing  of  my  soul."  It 
was  thought  that  alms  extinguished  the  flames  of 
hell.  "  As  water  puts  out  fire,  so  alms  put  out 
sins,"  was  a  common  text  for  sermons.  Beyond 
question  this  was  utilitarianism  of  a  vulgar  kind, 
and  all  the  worse  because  enthroned  as  theology. 
That  fact  however  has  no  bearing.  The  movement 
of  the  Church  towards  charities  is  not  thereby  robbed 
of  a  particle  of  its  significance  for  our  subject.  An 
American  millionaire  builds  a  library  for  his  native 
town.  Possibly  he  is  impelled  by  a  desire  to  give 
his  pride  and  name  a  wide  airing.  None  the  less, 
the  fact  that  he  spends  his  money  in  this  way,  rather 
than  in  raising  a  high  stone  wall  about  his  estate,  is 
symptomatic  of  a  certain  public  opinion,  and  above 
all,  of  a  deep  popular  desire  for  the  means  of  educa- 
tion. Even  so,  the  significant  thing  for  us  is  not  that 
a  larger  or  smaller  part  of  the  money  that  went  into 
charities  was  given  in  order  that  men  might  escape 
from  hell,  but  that  this  particular  method  of  insur- 
ance against  damnation  was  considered  effective. 
Homer's  men  sacrificed  hecatombs  to  please  the 
gods.  The  rich  men  of  the  Empire,  who  passed 
over  to  Christianity,  gave  their  goods  to  feed  the 
poor,  in  order  to  be  saved.  It  demonstrates  as  clear 
as  day  that  the  poor  and  lowly  have  acquired  a  new 
and  potent  claim  on  the  interest  and  attention  of  the 
world.  They  are  an  altar  on  which  Christians  lay 
their  sacrifices. 

Money  given  to  and  for  the  poor  was  thought  to 
have  atoning  power  for  sin,  because  the  poor  were 
supposed  to  be  of  very  high  price  in  the  estimate  of 
God.  The  key  to  that  splendid  outburst  of  enthu- 


IV  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  141 

siasm,  that  almost  fanatical  almsgiving,  is  reverence 
for  the  universal  humanity.  The  churchmen  who 
inspired  and  guided  the  movement  believed  that  in 
giving  to  the  lowly,  they  were  giving  to  the  Christ. 
Chrysostom  cries  out:  "O  madness.  The  Christ 
comes  to  thee  in  the  dress  of  the  poor,  and  you 
do  not  touch  Him." 43  Once  more,  commenting  on 
Christ's  words,  "  I  was  an  hungered,"  he  says ;  "  he 
who  comes  to  thee  (hidden  in  the  poor)  is  a  friend, 
being  at  the  same  time  friend  and  benefactor  and 
lord."44  He  and  all  others  who  led  the  common 
folk  felt  about  themselves  and  in  effect  spoke  about 
themselves,  as  the  sculptor  feels,  who  stands  before 
a  rough  block  of  marble  that  conceals  within  it  the 
possibility  of  a  noble  statue.  Each  deed  of  service 
brought  the  hidden  divine  beauty  nearer  the  light. 
In  that  "love  of  the  unlovely,"  which  led  highbred 
women  to  do  the  roughest  sort  of  kitchen  and  table 
work,  while  ministering  to  beggars,  with  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  girl  going  to  her  first  ball ;  and  which  sent 
men  of  noble  birth  to  make  themselves  literally  the 
servants  of  servants,  with  the  fire  of  soldiers  going 
upon  the  charge  —  one  thing  and  one  thing  alone 
can  be  seen,  the  conviction  that  humanity,  wherever 
found,  has  an  infinite  value. 

The  zeal  for  charities  ran  into  all  sorts  of  reckless 
giving.  Chrysostom  speaks  for  well-nigh  everybody 
when  he  says  that  "  almsgiving  is  the  first  of 
trades."45  Augustine  declares  that  "the  rich  man 
has  nothing  from  his  riches  but  what  the  poor 
man  begs  from  him."46  Hermas  compares  the  rich 
to  posts  on  which  vines  lean :  the  rich  themselves 
bear  no  fruit,  but  by  supporting  the  vines  (i.e.  the 


142  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

poor)  they  share  in  the  efficiency  of  their  prayers.47 
Isidore  commends  giving  even  to  one  whom  the  giver 
knows  to  be  a  pretender  and  a  liar.48  Ambrose  was 
sober-minded  and  cautious.  But  there  were  not  many 
who  kept  their  heads  as  well  as  he  did.  Both  the 
worker  in  Associated  Charities  and  the  labor  leader 
of  our  day  would  vehemently  fault  the  doctrine  of 
almsgiving  held  by  nearly  the  whole  body  of  the 
Fathers :  the  former  because  it  debauches  the  man- 
hood of  the  poor;  and  the  latter  because  he  wants 
not  alms  but  justice. 

Without  spending  time  either  in  defence  or  accu- 
sation of  the  Fathers,  it  may  be  dogmatically  affirmed 
that  both  sorts  of  critics,  if  they  went  a  little  deeper, 
would  be  surprised,  seeing  that  what  the  labor  leader 
demands — "justice,  not  charity" — is  precisely  what 
the  Fathers  as  a  whole  think  they  are  giving.  They 
preach  charity  as  a  matter  of  justice.  Tithes,  when 
first  imposed,  were  meant  to  be  mainly  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  poor.49  All  property  vested  in  God. 
Therefore,  the  tithe  was  the  acknowledgment  of 
His  title,  His  own  property  being  returned  to  Him 
through  the  hands  of  the  poor.  Hence,  the  tithe 
was  a  matter  of  bare  justice.  The  whole  estate  of 
the  Church  was  looked  on  as  the  poor  man's  estate, 
and  this  idea  did  not  lose  its  force  until  the  feudal 
system  came  in.60  Gregory  the  Great  says  flatly 
that  the  Christian  who  gives  to  the  poor  must  not 
flatter  himself  that  it  is  an  act  of  compassion  on 
his  part;  for  it  is  bare  justice,  because  the  goods 
received  from  a  common  Lord  ought  to  be  enjoyed 
in  common.51  This  is  substantially  the  feeling  of 
Lactantius,  Ambrose,  Chrysostom,  Augustine,  and, 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  143 

so  far  as  I  know,  of  all  the  Fathers  who  expressed 
an  opinion  on  or  near  the  subject. 

The  continuity  of  feeling  from  the  Fathers  down 
may  be  proved.  Bourdaloue  in  modern  times  ex- 
pressed the  patristic  feeling  admirably  when  he  said  : 
"  The  man  who  gives  an  alms  is  not  liberal ;  he  is  pay- 
ing a  debt ;  'tis  the  legitimate  property  of  the  poor 
which  the  giver  cannot  refuse  without  injustice."52 
It  is  plain  that  these  ideas  of  the  Fathers  were 
not  meant  to  be  ornaments.  Through  the  unbroken 
succession  of  monastic  teachers  and  preachers  they 
entered  largely  into  the  common  stock.  It  is  true 
that  the  Fathers  were  quite  as  zealous  in  affirming 
that  the  divine  will  ordained  the  perpetuity  of  pov- 
erty ;  and  that  the  poor  man,  to  be  a  Christian,  must 
respect  the  existing  order  of  things.  But  when  the 
dogma  concerning  the  divine  will,  in  its  old  sense, 
shall  have  lost  its  grip  upon  the  lay  will,  when  the 
duty  of  obedience  shall  have  ceased  to  be  the  heart 
of  virtue,  the  poor  man  may  take  a  different  road 
to  the  assertion  of  justice.  Then,  perhaps,  the  pious 
thoughts  of  the  Fathers  may  become  part  of  the 
powder  for  a  revolution. 

It  must  however  be  steadily  kept  in  mind  that 
theories  concerning  property  and  poverty  are  in  no 
sense  the  marrow  of  patristic  thinking.  Consequently, 
to  call  them  Socialists  would  be  a  serious  abuse  of 
words.  Their  intention  was  to  exalt  the  worth  of 
the  humanity  they  believed  to  be  common  to  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men.  The  attention  they  gave  to 
the  economic  side  of  things  was  purely  incidental. 
Their  view  of  life  has  importance  for  the  history  of 
the  social  question  because  it  shows,  first,  that  the 


144          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

disinherited  classes  have  now  attracted  the  perma- 
nent attention  of  the  world's  picked  men  and  women; 
and  second,  that  since  it  was  the  outshining  of  the 
gospel  that  called  attention  into  that  quarter,  the 
gospel  itself  gives  guarantees  that  the  interests  of 
the  Christian  reason  and  conscience  shall  continue 
to  be  directed  thither.  The  fortune  of  Christianity 
is  in  the  long  run  to  be  made  or  marred  by  its  ability 
to  idealize  the  cause  of  the  men  of  low  estate.  The 
form  the  idealization  assumes  must  change.  The 
task  abides. 

There  are  typical  acts  in  history,  acts  wherein 
desire  and  deed  perfectly  content  each  other,  as  idea 
and  matter  blend  in  a  noble  statue ;  so  that,  forever 
after,  men  come  up  to  them  and  look  into  them  to 
behold  the  prophecy  of  the  humanity  that  must  be. 
Sidney's  gift  of  water  on  the  battle-field  is  such  a 
deed.  Lincoln,  in  the  streets  of  Richmond  just  after 
Lee  had  abandoned  it,  and  lifting  his  hat  to  the 
negroes  crowding  about  him,  wrought  another;  for 
his  act  represented  America,  and  through  him 
America  showed  reverence  to  those  who  were  to 
become  her  citizens.  But  the  greatest  of  all  typical 
deeds  was  wrought  by  the  Christ,  when  He  washed 
the  feet  of  His  servants.  By  the  terms  of  the  creed 
He  was  both  God  and  Man.  So  the  Church  was 
bound  to  see  her  whole  career  prefigured  in  His  deed. 
He  alone  is  Christlike  who  makes  himself  the  min- 
ister and  interpreter  of  the  humanity  that  is  unseen 
save  by  the  eye  of  faith.  In  Plato's  myth  of  Glaucus 
truth  is  portrayed  as  a  sea-god,  befouled  by  weeds 
and  shells ;  and  the  work  of  philosophy  is  to  remove 
them,  and  let  the  god's  beauty  gladden  the  light. 


iv  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  145 

According  to  Christianity,  the  possibility  of  highest 
manhood  is  pent  up  within  the  down-trodden  and  the 
brutalized.  Unless  that  possibility  is  given  a  fair 
field  for  self-development,  either  in  this  world  or 
the  next  or  both,  Christianity  wholly  misses  its  aim. 


V 

DURING  the  fifth  century  the  secular  life  of  the 
West  went  into  bankruptcy.  The  terrestrial  order  of 
things  sank  below  the  threshold  of  the  higher  con- 
sciousness. Three  dates  serve  as  convenient  points 
for  memory,  —  the  sack  of  Rome  in  410,  the  second 
sack  in  456,  and  the  abdication  of  the  last  emperor  in 
476.  Although  the  last  event  has  more  formal  than 
real  meaning,  yet,  taken  with  the  other  two,  it  stands 
for  the  departure  of  the  State  from  the  field  of  the 
spirit.  In  the  palmy  days  of  Greece  and  Rome  the 
State  was  also  a  Church,  the  secular  and  ideal  inter- 
ests of  the  race  making  a  single  cargo.  Now  the 
State  has  become  unseaworthy,  and  the  ideal  interests 
are  no  longer  entrusted  to  its  care.  The  Catholic 
Church  henceforth  monopolizes  them.  The  soul  is 
an  absentee  from  the  world's  politics. 

On  the  Christian  side,  and  long  before  the  fifth 
century,  this  had  become  a  matter  of  course.  The 
attitude  of  the  Church  towards  the  State  had  not, 
indeed,  been  conformed  to  a  cast-iron  rule,  but  changed 
somewhat  with  the  times.  Thus,  as  Ramsay  says, 
a  new  period  began  with  Hadrian.  The  relations 
so  sorely  strained  since  the  days  of  Nero  eased  up. 
Hadrian's  evident  desire  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  Christians  was  heartily  appreciated.  The 

146 


CHAP,  v      GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  147 

bishops,  representing  the  statesmanship  of  the  Church, 
stood  on  the  platform  of  conciliation.53  The  main 
feeling  of  Christians,  as  represented  by  the  bishops, 
permitted  Christians  to  hold  office  and  serve  in  the 
army.  Hence  Tertullian  must  not  be  taken  as  rep- 
resentative of  the  whole  Church  of  his  time,  when 
he  says,  "  Nothing  is  more  foreign  (to  the  Christian) 
than  public  affairs."  So,  too,  we  must  discount  the 
action  of  a  Synod  like  the  fiercely  puritanizing  one 
of  Elvira,  which  ruled  that  whoever  held  the  office  of 
a  duumvir  must,  during  his  period  of  office,  keep 
away  from  church.  For  not  only  was  Spain  a  pro- 
vincial diocese,  but  that  action  was  taken  in  the  heat 
of  a  violent  persecution.  And,  of  course,  when  Chris- 
tianity became  the  established  religion  of  the  Empire, 
the  radical  puritanism  represented  by  Tertullian  had 
no  longer  any  real  standing-ground.  Nevertheless, 
after  all  this  has  been  said,  the  proposition  that  the 
higher  thought  of  the  times,  as  embodied  in  the  Church, 
did  not  take  any  serious  account  of  the  State  in  the 
West,  remains  substantially  unimpaired. 

Enough  is  not  yet  said.  Because  the  Church  had 
been  for  four  centuries  always  distinct  from  the  State 
and  opposed  to  it  most  of  the  time  in  matters  of  vital 
moment,  because  also  the  opposition  was  stated  in 
elementary  terms  by  reason  of  that  fundamental 
enmity  between  monotheism  and  polytheism  which 
caused  the  more  rigid  Christian  to  detect  the  stains 
of  idolatry  everywhere  in  the  social  and  civic  life,  the 
attitude  of  the  Christian  reason  and  conscience 
towards  public  matters  may  be  taken  as  not  repre- 
senting the  deepest  mood  of  the  Mediterranean  world. 
But  this  suspicion  is  removed  when  we  look  to  the 


148  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

side  of  heathenism  and  find  the  same  tendency.  Since 
the  days  of  Socrates  it  had  been  a  stock  subject  for 
debate  in  the  schools,  whether  the  philosopher  could 
stay  in  politics  or  must  live  as  a  private  citizen.  The 
Epicureans  and  Sceptics  answered  with  an  emphatic 
negative.  The  Stoics,  by  reason  of  their  emphasis  on 
law  and  their  ideal  of  life  according  to  Nature  or  in 
keeping  with  the  whole  of  things,  kept  far  closer  to 
public  interests.  Yet  even  they  found  the  footing 
slippery.  Their  cosmopolitanism  was  in  some  respects 
like  the  pretentious  cosmopolitanism  of  our  own  day, 
—  a  citizenship  in  everywhere,  having  a  root  in  nowhere. 
Two  things  make  plain  the  point  towards  which 
the  undercurrents  of  feeling  were  moving.  First,  the 
fact  that  Stoic  ethic  was  gradually  sucked  into  the 
deepening  religious  current  of  the  Empire,  until  in 
the  third  century  it  wholly  ceased  to  be  a  philosophic 
ethic  and  became  religion  almost  pure  and  simple. 
Philosophic  ethic  endeavors  to  find  the  saving  unities 
of  life  within  the  bounds  of  this  world.  The  first 
clear  attempt  at  such  an  ethic  had  been  made  by  the 
Greeks.  Before  their  time  ethic  was  either  absorbed 
in  religion,  or  was  a  mere  collection  of  moral  maxims, 
without  any  centre  or  organizing  concept.  Greek 
philosophy,  beginning  with  Socrates,  set  itself  to  the 
task  of  working  out  a  reasoned  ethic.  The  resulting 
independence  of  religion  had  lasted  in  the  schools 
for  centuries.  The  Stoics,  standing  nearer  the  popu- 
lar consciousness  than  any  other  school,  had  never 
so  completely  separated  ethic  and  religion.  They 
had  gone  however  a  considerable  distance.  And 
now  the  attempt  was  wholly  given  up.  No  saving 
unity  could  be  found  except  in  religion,  and  seeing 


v  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  149 

that  the  visible  world  had  by  this  time  lost  most  of 
its  sap,  while  the  traditional  religious  forms  were  no 
better  than  ruins,  there  could  be  little  question  that 
the  religion  called  for  would  look  beyond  this  side  of 
things. 

The  other  phenomenon  is  the  Neoplatonic  theory  of 
reason.  It  ended  in  intellectual  ecstasy.  The  forebod- 
ing of  this  appeared  even  in  Aristotle,  in  the  emphasis 
he  lays  on  the  contemplative  as  compared  with  the 
practical  virtues.  But  in  Aristotle  the  body  of  thought 
was  soundly  immanent,  whereas  the  Neoplatonists, 
although  they  did  their  best  to  be  true  to  Aristotle, 
well-nigh  absorbed  the  seen  into  the  unseen.  True 
rational  unity  cannot  be  found  in  the  sphere  of  ter- 
restrial experience.  The  scientific  and  even  the  sin- 
cerely philosophic  reason  cannot  attain  unto  it.  The 
only  road  is  through  a  dialectic  that  is  the  asceticism 
of  the  mind.  When  Plotinus  says,  —  following  Plato 
indeed,  yet  with  much  heavier  emphasis,  —  "  The 
mind  is  the  place  of  the  body,"  M  he  spoke  a  word 
that,  however  deep  its  truth  when  rightly  taken,  if 
taken  as  he  took  it,  rings  the  knell  of  scientific  real- 
ism. If  man  must  swoon  into  unity  with  the  divine, 
then,  plainly,  the  long  struggle  of  the  Greek  mind  to 
conciliate  the  One  and  the  Many  has  ended  with  the 
triumph  of  the  One.  The  Many  are  driven  off  the 
field.  The  manifold  is  swallowed  up  in  the  unity. 

In  a  word,  the  religion  of  the  Empire  had  become, 
in  the  third  century,  a  religion  with  both  eyes  on  the 
other  side  of  things.55  And  in  the  worship  of  the 
Emperor  the  Empire  unconsciously  confessed  that 
the  State  must  become  a  Church  on  a  deeper  reli- 
gious basis  than  the  experience  of  Greece  and  Rome 


150          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

provided,  in  order  to  insure  the  ideal  goods  of  the 
Occident.  The  Mediterranean  world  was  ripe  for 
the  Catholic  Church. 

The  intellectual  life  of  that  Church  fused  the  Greek 
and  the  Biblical  views  of  the  universe.  A  book  that 
appeared  in  the  fifth  century,  the  Pseudo-Dionysius. 
in  some  respects  striking  in  itself  but  more  striking 
because  of  its  profound  influence  over  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal thought  of  the  next  one  thousand  years,  stands 
for  this  fusion.  Neoplatonism  and  Christianity  are 
interknit.  The  dominating  idea  is  the  divine  mon- 
archy. The  cosmos  finds  its  frame  in  Christ.  But 
the  Biblical  doctrine  concerning  the  Kingdom  of  God 
has  gone  far  away  from  the  centre.  In  its  place  is 
the  immortality  of  the  individual  and  his  communion 
with  the  unseen.  The  story  of  his  pilgrimage  up 
through  one  sacramental  stage  after  another  is  beau- 
tifully told.  But  the  difference  between  this  book 
and  the  Bible  leaps  at  the  eye.  In  the  Bible,  the  line 
of  vision  runs  along  the  earth,  through  history,  to  the 
second  coming  of  the  Christ,  the  consummation  of 
history,  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth.  Here, 
on  the  contrary,  the  line  of  vision  runs  up  away  from 
the  earth,  through  the  sanctities  of  heaven,  to  a  tran- 
scendent God.  Now  this  book  was  synchronous  with 
the  departure  of  the  State  from  the  stage  of  the 
higher  life.  The  connection  goes  deeper  than  chro- 
nology. The  two  facts  not  merely  have  the  same 
date,  they  acknowledge  a  common  root. 

We  need  not  lament  over  the  losses  attending  the 
fusion  of  the  Greek  and  Biblical  views,  as  if  the  one 
sacrificed  thereby  most  of  its  beauty,  and  the  other 
most  of  its  moral  leverage.  The  case  is  not  so. 


v  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  151 

The  aim  of  history,  as  seen  in  the  light  of  modern 
Democracy,  was  a  definition  of  the  individual  that 
should  include  the  qualities  of  the  common  man, 
thereby  entailing  a  new  conception  of  society.  To 
achieve  this  aim,  the  diverse  and  even  conflicting 
elements  of  antiquity  must  be  fused.  The  one  thing 
most  needed  by  the  rough  centuries  following  the 
fifth  was  an  imperial  working  will.  The  Empire  had 
once  given  the  world  such  a  will,  but  the  Empire  was 
dead.  And  besides,  the  new  imperial  will  must  be  of 
another  sort.  Under  the  mental  and  spiritual  con- 
dition of  the  time,  it  could  not  rest  upon  anything 
short  of  absolute  dogmatic  certitude. 

George  Eliot,  in  the  preface  to  Middlemarch,  speaks 
of  the  "  later-born  Theresas  "  who  "  were  helped  by 
no  coherent  social  faith  and  order  which  could  per- 
form the  function  of  knowledge  for  the  ardently  will- 
ing soul,"  who  therefore  "  found  for  themselves  no 
epic  life,  wherein  there  was  a  constant  -unfolding 
of  far-resonant  action."  The  words  are  profoundly 
true.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of  emotional  waste 
nowadays.  Hosts  of  people  whom  Nature  never  de- 
signed for  criticism  and  logical  argument  are  driven 
to  seek  peace  and  strength  along  this  road,  and 
exhaust  a  large  part  of  their  feeling  and  of  their 
capacity  for  stanch  and  simple  character  in  paying 
the  inevitable  toll.  Our  comfort  however  is  that  the 
apparent  waste  is  for  the  most  part  necessary  waste, 
and  consequently  not  waste  at  all.  Ahead  of  us  lies 
a  higher  type  of  social  will  in  Church  and  State. 
Individuals  must  pay  heavy  taxes  in  order  that  such 
a  will  may  come. 

Our  conditions  however  are  not  unlike  the  early 


152  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

mediaeval  conditions  merely  as  regards  mental  appa- 
ratus of  every  kind.  We  also  differ  fundamentally 
from  them  in  this, — that  our  task  is  less  difficult.  We 
do  not  have  to  create  a  society  and  a  government. 
However  serious  the  faults  in  the  construction  of 
contemporary  society,  —  the  house  we  live  in,  —  it 
is  a  house,  for  all  that.  Now  it  is  possible,  when  the 
house  is  built,  when  there  are  social  and  govern- 
mental forms  that,  spite  of  blundering,  have  a  large 
measure  of  real  efficiency,  —  it  is  possible  for  many 
men,  who  cannot  with  justice  be  called  triflers,  to  sit 
on  cushions  in  the  window-seats,  —  reading,  analyzing, 
speculating,  doubting.  But  the  proper  work  of  the 
centuries  from  the  fifth  to  the  thirteenth,  we  must 
remember,  was  nothing  less  than  to  create  a  society, 
to  hammer  out  new  and  efficient  governmental  forms. 
.So  great  a  task  could  not  be  coped  with  by  men 
who  criticised  and  doubted.  The  free  play  of  mind 
around  problems  was  largely  surplusage,  and  as  much 
out  of  place  as  leisure  would  have  been  behind  that 
stone  wall  at  Gettysburg,  where  the  high  tide  of 
Southern  gallantry  stayed  its  course.  The  one 
spiritual  need  of  the  time  was  men  of  imperious 
certitude,  of  dominating  and  even  tyrannical  con- 
viction. To  make  such  a  certitude  possible,  the 
Greek  and  Biblical  views  of  the  world  had  to  sacri- 
fice, each  of  them,  important  characteristics.  A 
single  world  resulted.  There  were  fatal  flaws  in  its 
unity,  which  the  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance 
brought  into  glaring  light.  But  the  men  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages  had  no  inkling  of  them.  So  far  as  they 
knew  and  felt,  their  world  was  of  one  piece,  from 
top  to  bottom. 


Y  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  153 

The  idea  of  God  became  transcendent.  The  visi- 
ble order  seemed  so  narrow  and  mean  that  the  things 
which  men  esteemed  could  not  find  befitting  enter- 
tainment within  it.  The  treasure  of  the  world  lay 
outside  the  world.  To  an  immanent  view  of  the 
universe  the  visible  order  has  permanent  value  in 
itself.  If  life  wefle  long  enough,  the  scientist  might 
gladly  prolong,  through  what  is  now  a  lifetime,  his 
study  of  earthworms,  and  their  next  of  kin.  To  the 
transcendent  view,  the  visible  order  has  no  meaning 
above  the  symbolical.  Its  highest  value  is  to  be  as 
the  tussock  of  grass  from  which  the  lark  rises  for  his 
song. 

This  transcendent  view  was  necessary.  The  dis- 
tinction between  the  sensuous  and  the  supersensuous, 
the  visible  and  the  spiritual,  as  that  age  conceived  it, 
was  an  indispensable  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
hand-laborer.  The  cause  of  the  laborer  is  logically 
bound  up  with  an  idealizing  view  of  the  universe. 
Up  to  our  own  time  it  has  not  been  possible  in  the 
Occident  for  such  a  view  to  even  think  of  a  career 
independent  of  religion.  We  must  remember  that 
all  religions  contain  a  transcendent  element ;  for  the 
lowest  religion  implies  some  sort  of  criticism  upon 
the  reality  that  surrounds  and  besets  the  working 
will.  It  suggests,  if  it  does  not  actually  provide,  a 
world  wherein  the  imagination,  the  aesthetic  other  self 
of  the  working  will,  may  live  a  freer  life.  The  his- 
tory of  religion  is  therefore,  when  taken  broadly,  the 
history  of  the  idealizing  will  in  humanity.  And  the 
story  of  the  growth  and  purification  of  the  religious 
consciousness  is,  for  our  present  purpose,  the  story 
of  the  way  in  which  the  deepest  purposes  of  our  race 


154  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

have  clarified  and  concentrated  themselves.  The 
culmination  of  the  process  in  antiquity  was  Biblical 
monotheism.56  At  this  point  the  idealizing  will  of 
humanity  occupies  a  position  of  the  most  relentless 
criticism  upon  social  and  political  realities. 

Schelling  said  that  there  was  no  supernatural  in 
Homer.  God  and  visible  Nature"  were  one,  and  God 
is  but  another  name  for  the  process  of  Nature.  It 
was  a  necessary  consequence  that  the  fields  of  the 
natural  and  the  ethical  were  not  marked  off  from 
each  other.  They  were  confused.57  It  resulted  from 
this  confusion  that  man  and  society  as  they  came 
under  the  eye  of  the  observer  were  too  apt  to  be  set 
up  as  the  measure  of  man  and  society  as  they  ought 
to  be.  The  local  kept  down  the  universal,  and  the 
citizen  bounded  the  soul.  But  the  Old  Testament 
drew  a  broad  distinction  between  the  natural  and  the 
ethical.  The  conception  of  God  as  holy  gave  clear 
expression  to  the  desire  for  a  good  larger  than  all  the 
goods  to  be  found  in  the  world  of  eye  and  ear. 
Every  view  of  the  world  reflects  the  social  will. 
The  Old  Testament  view,  carried  to  the  length  of  its 
principle  by  the  New  Testament  doctrine  concerning 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  reflected  the  impassioned  long- 
ing for  a  perfect  society,  and  thereby  vehemently 
impeached  the  finality  of  existing  society. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  make  plain  the  great  differ- 
ence between  the  Biblical  and  the  mediaeval  views  of 
the  supernatural.  All  that  concerns  us  is  the  fact 
that,  given  the  Biblical  view  on  the  one  side  and  on 
the  other  the  intellectual  and  social  conditions  of  the 
Mediterranean  world,  the  mediaeval  conception  of 
the  life  of  God  and  man  was  both  an  historical 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  155 

necessity  and  a  great  contribution  to  the  cause  of 
the  laborer.  It  proclaimed,  in  the  shape  of  a  dogma 
held  to  be  essential  to  salvation,  the  impossibility  of 
society  according  to  Homer  and  the  Roman  patri- 
cian. It  exalted  the  soul,  that  is,  the  universal  man, 
the  staple  of  humanity  in  all  men,  far  above  the  citi- 
zen, with  his  inherited  privileges  and  tenacious  pre- 
rogatives. It  cleared  a  space  for  the  imagination  to 
play  and  work  over.  To  persistent  and  stubborn 
longings  after  a  perfect  society  it  opened  the  gate 
into  a  field  where  the  writs  of  terrestrial  aristocracies 
did  not  run.  It  gave  imaginative  outlet  to  the  deep- 
est desires  of  the  best  men  and  women ;  and  at  the 
same  time  stored  them  up  in  dreams  and  books, 
until  they  should  grow  strong  enough  to  make  for 
themselves  a  body,  and  enter  the  field  of  politics. 

The  Biblical  idea  of  the  Kingdom  from  Heaven 
gives  way  to  the  idea  of  a  kingdom  in  heaven.  This 
heaven  is  the  counterpart  of  the  individual  who  was 
being  defined.  As  an  absolute  individual  standing 
outside  all  relationships  save  that  with  God,  a  sort 
of  celestialized  Robinson  Crusoe,  he  carries  with  him 
this  vision  of  heaven  as  a  world  outside  the  world. 
The  thought  of  this  world  above,  a  brave  land  where 
all  is  perfect,  was  inseparable,  under  the  conditions 
of  the  time,  from  the  conception  of  the  soul  as  "  the 
seat  and  domicile  of  the  highest  good."68  The  shift 
of  the  centre  of  imagination  to  the  other  side  fell 
in  with  the  shift  of  the  centre  of  gravity  from  the 
ancient  State  to  the  absolute  unit,  the  soul. 

It  should  not  for  a  moment  be  thought  that  this 
estate  of  "  splendid  having  and  royal  hope "  which 
the  common  man,  defined  as  soul,  entered  upon,  was 


156  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

an  estate  in  the  air.  The  world  above,  as  a  concep- 
tion and  estimate  of  life,  pre-empts  and  holds  a  large 
place  in  consciousness  and  consequently  presses 
steadily  down  upon  the  lower  world.  Tyrants,  if 
they  perfectly  knew  their  trade  and  could  altogether 
have  their  way,  would  not  let  their  people  dream  this 
dream  of  heaven ;  for  heaven,  after  all,  is  but  an 
idealized  earth.  Man  cannot  think  of  God  unless 
in  an  anthropomorphic  way.  His  visions  of  the 
next  world  take  shape  and  color  from  his  experience 
of  this.  Therefore  the  doctrine  of  heaven,  as  the 
place  where  the  impassioned  desires  of  men  for  a 
perfect  state  are  to  disencumber  themselves  of  all 
the  circumstances  that  hem  in  the  higher  will  on 
earth,  must  inevitably  have  its  due  effect  upon  ter- 
restrial polities.  There  can  be  no  thought  without 
speech ;  and  all  enduring  thought  will  without  fail 
recast  language  to  its  own  end.  So,  in  the  upshot 
and  issue  of  things,  the  vision  of  heaven  shall  color 
the  conception  of  earth.  There  has  never  been  a 
labor  problem  in  the  Orient.  Neither  has  there 
been  a  clear  and  catholic  doctrine  of  heaven.  The 
Occidental  heaven  is  the  home  of  the  universal 
individual.  The  thought  of  it  cannot  lie  for  fifteen 
hundred  years  on  the  common  mind,  and  not  inspire 
attempts  to  translate  it  into  the  life  of  time  and  space. 
Upon  the  basis  of  the  transcendent  idea  of  God, 
of  the  outstanding  individual,  of  the  vivid  picture  of 
the  other  world,  and  upon  the  absolute  autocratic 
certitude  which  enfolded  all  these  ideas,  the  Church 
established  herself  in  the  West.  The  establishment 
was  not  like  the  one  in  Constantinople,  where  the 
Emperor  dominated  the  bishops ;  nor  as  in  the 


v  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  157 

England  of  to-day,  a  lay  Parliament  being  sovereign. 
The  Church  was  separate,  and  more  and  more  self- 
controlled.  In  this  way  alone  did  the  movement 
towards  the  separation  of  Church  from  State  reach 
its  climax ;  for  the  separation  could  not  become  com- 
plete until  the  Church  became  sovereign.  Gibbon, 
in  a  famous  sentence,  described  the  Papacy  as  the 
ghost  of  the  Empire.  It  was  not  a  ghost  in  any 
sense,  unless  power  based  on  belief  in  the  unseen 
is  ghost-like.  It  was  an  empire  as  real  as  that  of 
the  Caesars.  From  the  day  when  Ambrose  made 
Theodosius  bow  to  church  discipline  to  Hildebrand's 
day  at  Canossa,  a  main-travelled  road  stretches,  as 
plain  and  broad  as  that  from  the  founding  of  Rome 
to  Augustus.  The  sovereignty  was  quite  as  truly 
the  demand  of  history  as  the  Empire. 

Such  a  thing  had  not  been  heard  of  before.  In 
the  primitive  view  of  the  world  religion  dominated 
the  State,  the  king  and  the  high  priest  being  identi- 
cal. But  the  case  before  us  is  totally  different.  First 
the  Church  is  separated  from  the  State  and  organized 
on  a  self-sufficient  basis.  Then,  having  taken  into 
her  charge  all  the  ideal  interests  of  humanity,  she 
proceeds  to  dominate  the  State. 

What  is  the  connection  between  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Church  and  the  social  question  ?  The  key  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  Church's  sovereignty  is 
built  upon  the  conception  of  the  universal  individual 
as,  on  the  one  hand,  having  infinite  worth  in  him- 
self and,  on  the  other,  standing  foot-loose  and  free 
towards  all  human  institutions  and  traditions  on  the 
ground  that  they  were  too  small  to  contain  him. 
The  individual  is  now  become  the  seat  of  all  real 


158  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

values.  Imagination  does  not  move  outside  the 
range  of  the  things  that  concern  his  eternal  welfare. 
Heaven  and  earth  are  concerned  in  his  smallest  sin. 
The  angels,  the  supreme  spirits,  are  gladdened  by 
his  triumph.  The  sacraments,  the  priesthood,  and 
the  whole  apparatus  of  an  infallible  Church  are  put 
in  play  in  order  to  save  the  one  thing  that  is  per- 
manently worth  while  in  the  universe,  —  his  soul. 
Secular  institutions  hang  loose  upon  him;  they  do  not 
become  him. 

The  eighteenth  century  man  who  shook  himself 
free  from  all  institutions  because  he  felt  himself  too 
large  for  them,  and  who  sat  down  to  draft  out  of 
his  inner  consciousness  a  perfect  constitution  that 
should  be  not  unworthy  of  him,  is  the  lawful  de- 
scendant of  this  common  individual  whose  soul  is 
the  pearl  of  great  price.  The  thought  of  him  is 
as  little  a  whim  as  the  thought  of  gravitation.  It 
passed  into  the  very  blood  of  Europe.  Social  uni- 
versalism  was  wrapped  up  in  him,  for  he  was  not 
one  whit  a  specialist,  all  that  he  had  of  value  being 
generic  and  translatable.  Hence  his  plan  for  him- 
self, although  drafted  in  the  language  of  the  other 
world,  was  really  this  world's  dream  of  its  own  per- 
fection. Napoleon  once  said  that  it  was  his  work  to 
open  a  career  to  all  the  talents.  By  this  doctrine  of 
the  soul's  heaven,  the  objectified  form  of  the  high- 
est spiritual  career  was  opened  to  the  lowest  man. 
Within  the  province  of  that  soul  there  was  no  dis- 
tinction of  persons.  From  hut  to  palace  it  was  one 
and  indistinguishable.  Its  value  was  so  vast  that  in 
its  presence  terrestrial  prerogatives  became  trifles. 
Of  course  this  was  largely  theory.  In  practice  kings 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  159 

and  lords  had  a  talent  for  bulking  larger  in  the 
churches  than  other  men  could.  But  the  theory 
never  ceased  to  sound  from  the  pulpit.  Moreover 
there  never  lacked  men  who  in  one  way  or  another 
acted  on  it.  The  Popes,  in  their  highest  estate,  com- 
pared the  spiritual  power  to  the  sun,  and  the  secular 
power  to  the  moon,  whose  light  is  all  borrowed.  The 
illustration  could  never  have  won  the  approbation  that 
Europe  gave  it,  and  have  gone  east  and  west,  north 
and  south,  unless  the  Church  had  mastered  the  wills 
of  men ;  and  that,  not  by  force,  but  by  appeal  to  the 
unseen  interests  of  the  world.  The  illustration,  there- 
fore, is  quite  as  significant,  to  say  the  least,  as  the 
solidest  phrase  in  Magna  Charta.  It  owed  its  whole 
power,  as  the  Church  owed  her  whole  establishment, 
to  the  deep-rooted  conviction  that  the  universal  indi- 
vidual was  a  thing  of  infinite  worth,  and  to  the  ex- 
pression of  the  conviction  in  terms  of  a  transcendent 
view  of  life.  It  involved  the  conclusion  that  the  sun 
of  the  ideal  had  risen  upon  the  downmost  man,  and 
that  any  idealizing  movement  in  history  must  hence- 
forth take  large  account  of  him.  The  doctrine  of 
heaven  and  what  went  with  it  was  thus  a  highly 
imaginative  way  of  saying  that  the  potential  was 
indefinitely  larger  than  the  actual,  the  possibility  of 
growth  in  the  men  of  low  estate  vastly  greater  than 
the  actuality. 

Of  necessity  the  Church  that  attained  sovereignty 
over  the  mediaeval  reason  and  conscience  was  an 
out-and-out  monastic  Church.  For  the  reason  and 
conscience  in  question  were  the  faculties  of  the 
clearly  defined  individual,  who  stood  outside  all  ter- 
restrial relationships ;  and  the  idea  of  God  that  ac- 


l6o          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

companied  this  idea  of  man  put  Him  largely  outside 
the  visible  order.  Hence  the  Church  that  embodied 
these  two  ideas  was  bound  to  be  ascetic.  To  think 
of  God,  the  fundamental  life,  as  aloof  from  terrestrial 
interests,  leads  the  best  men  and  women  to  find  their 
life  also  outside  the  world. 

The  growth  of  monasticism  had  kept  step  with  the 
secularization  of  the  Church  in  the  third  and  follow- 
ing centuries.59  After  Montanism  had  failed  in  its 
attempt  to  carry  the  Puritan  ideal  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  lay  life,  when  once  Catholicism 
made  up  its  mind  to  keep  house  with  the  world,  the 
path  to  the  monastery  was  soon  beaten  hard.  The 
puritanizing  spirit,  more  and  more  ill  at  ease  in  its 
close  contact  with  the  social  life  of  the  times,  —  a 
contact  that  was  made  necessary  by  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  Church  with  the  State,  —  sought  a  home 
of  its  own,  and  joining  forces  with  the  ascetic  views 
that  prevailed  more  and  more,  built  a  Church  within 
the  Church.  The  logic  of  the  inner  life  of  the  whole 
Mediterranean  world  had  long  been  making  in  that 
direction.  Consciousness  was  disrupted  and  life  split 
into  an  inner  and  outer  side.  A  hard-and-fast  dis- 
tinction was  drawn  between  reason  and  revelation, 
between  sense  and  spirit.  Seneca,  by  good  rights, 
should  have  been  a  monk,  because  his  Enchiridion 
needed  but  a  little  holy  water  to  make  it,  as  far  as  it 
went,  a  monk's  manual.  But  he  didn't  dare  to  be 
a  monk.  He  stayed  in  society  and  made  up  for  his 
lack  of  moral  fibre  by  the  luxury  of  a  good  cry  over 
his  sins.  The  pathetic  absent-mindedness  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  betrayed  the  heartache  of  a  man  who  could 
find  no  peace  in  this  world,  for  whom  the  springs  of 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  161 

joyous  life  in  society  were  nearly  stopped  up.  The 
motto  of  Plotinus  —  The  flight  of  the  one  (pure  rea- 
son) to  the  One  (God)  —  told  the  secret  of  the  world's 
deepest  desires.  All  brooks  emptied  into  the  river 
of  monasticism. 

In  the  fourth  century  the  movement  began  to  be  a 
stampede.  Well-nigh  all  the  best  men,  about  all  the 
great  men,  took  larger  or  smaller  part  in  it.  The 
men  of  mark  who  stood  up  for  the  full  rights  of 
the  secular  life  might  have  been  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand.  Just  one  first-rate  figure,  Theo- 
dore of  Mopsuestia,  was  on  that  side.  Ebert  calls  a 
book,  written  in  the  fourth  century  and  idealizing  the 
ascetic  life,  the  Robinson  Crusoe  of  the  day.60  It  hit 
the  common  feeling  full  centre. 

/0/VV 

Not  only  did  the  current  of  past  centuries  flow 
towards  monasticism,  but  the  needs  of  the  centuries  ' 
to  come  demanded  it.     One  cannot  see  how,  without 
it,  the  Church   could  have  withstood  feudalization ; 
and  that  would  have  been  tantamount  to  putting  her   \ 
upon  a  thoroughly  aristocratic  basis.     It  is  harder  to 
see  how  Europe  could  have  maintained  any  literary 
continuity  worth  speaking  of  without  the  help  of  the  / 

1  •  /•  •  *  1  •  A  1      A.  j_"1 1          1  1        ' 


life  in  the  monasteries.  And  to  go  still  deeper  and 
view  the  matter  in  its  connection  with  our  subject, 
monasticism  was  necessary  in  order  to  fulfil  the  re- 
treat from  the  outer  world  to  that  inner  world  where 
tHe~cbmmon  man  was  to  firsMvinat  complete  emanci- 
pation.  In  the  outer  world  he  was  held  fast  by  the 
traditions  of  society.  But  monasticism  laid  the  axe 
to  the  roots  of  those  traditions.  The  declaration 
that  the  world  was  worthless  and  so  must  be  aban- 
doned was  the  negative  side  of  the  conviction  that 


1 62  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  essential  man  in  every  man  was  infinitely  worthy. 
Wundt  well  says  that  the  clear  separation  between 
this  side  of  things  and  the  you-side  was  a  great  step 
in  ethics.  So  long  as  the  spirits  of  the  departed 
were  supposed  to  be  chained  to  the  graves  or  places 
near  the  graves,  they  were  dependent  upon  the  liv- 
ing and  therefore,  while  inspiring  fear,  lacked  ideal 
dignity.  But  the  clear  separation  between  the  two 
sides  of  the  grave  enhanced  the  freedom  and  dignity 
of  the  dead,  and  so  raised  the  value  of  the  world  be- 
yond as  a  place  of  storage  for  ideals.61  In  the  same 
vein,  it  may  be  said  that  the  substitution  of  the  one 
God  of  monotheism  for  the  many  Gods  of  polytheism, 
added  vastly  to  the  ideal  capacity  of  the  unseen 
world,  since  Gods  like  the  Gods  of  early  Rome,  Gods 
who  had  no  residence  save  at  Rome,  could  not  have 
freedom  or  self-masterhood.  In  a  similar  way  the 
monastery  was  a  pledge  of  the  independence  of  the 
spiritual  view  of  things  and  of  its  ultimate  masterful- 
ness. Confronting  the  castle,  it  bespoke  the  reality 
of  a  world  where  the  low-born  stands  level  to  the 
noble.  The  man  without  a  grandfather  within  its 
walls  was  raised  to  the  spiritual  peerage. 

The  separation  of  the  Church  from  the  State,  the 
independence  of  the  Church,  the  building  of  an  in- 
terior Church  through  monasticism,  were  so  many 
steps  towards  the  isolation  of  the  moral  ideal.  It 
was  the  one  way  in  which  that  age,  with  its  forms 
of  life  and  categories  of  mind,  could  prove  itself  to 
be  deeply  in  earnest  with  morality.  Epictetus  had 
said :  "  To  what  sort  of  occasion  wilt  thou  postpone 
thinking  thyself  worthy  of  the  best  things  ?  "62  The 
words  were  spoken  by  a  slave  to  his  own  deeper  nat- 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  163 

ure.  Tertullian  bade  the  soul  of  the  common  man 
stand  forth  and  exercise  its  suffrage  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  The  task  of  history,  as  interpreted  by  the 
social  movement,  is  to  individualize  the  downmost. 
To  be  individual  is  to  be  moralized ;  and  to  be  moral- 
ized is  to  be  within  reach  of  the  world's  best  things, 
to  lie  open  to  what  it  accounts  its  mysteries,  to  be  a 
logical  candidate  for  its  prerogatives.  Now  it  was 
the  social  function  of  the  monastery  to  make  one 
absolute  level  of  humanity  within  its  walls.  It  thus 
had  its  proper  part  to  play  in  the  preparation  for  our 
times.  While  its  entire  scheme  of  life  was  tran- 
scendent, it  was  nevertheless  on  the  earth,  planted 
as  solidly  as  the  baron's  castle. 

The  man  of  antiquity  carried  with  him  into  the 
monastery  the  ideas,  economic  or  bordering  on  the 
economic,  which  were  the  staple  of  thought  in 
the  world  he  abandoned.  Let  us  take  stock  of 
them. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  had  no  Political  Economy 
in  our  sense  of  the  word.  Their  economics  consti- 
tuted a  chapter  —  not  a  very  prominent  one  either  — 
in  their  theory  of  politics ;  while  politics  were  only 
ethics  on  the  grand  scale.  Socrates  opens  the  dis- 
cussion in  the  Republic  by  saying  that  the  State  is 
the  greater  man,  that  the  needs  and  problems  of  the 
individual's  character  are  written  by  it  in  so  bold  a 
hand  that  they  are  easily  read.  Economics,  so  far  as 
they  are  discussed  at  all,  came  in  through  this  door. 
Aristotle's  main  question  was  not — What  constitutes 
a  day's  wage?  but  —  What  elements  go  into  the  char- 
acter of  a  true  citizen  and  what  conditions  favor  such 
citizenhood  ?  Antiquity  in  general  agreed  with  the 


164          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Greeks  and  Romans.  In  the  Old  Testament  eco- 
nomics are  a  part  of  theology.  The  Book  of  Deuter- 
onomy is  in  hearty  agreement  with  Plato's  Republic 
as  to  its  aim  :  the  salvation  of  the  State  is  the  objec- 
tive point.  Economics,  therefore,  were  directly  and 
altogether  ethical.  How  to  make  men  was  the  one 
concern. 

There  are  tendencies  of  our  own  times  that  may 
serve  to  render  sympathy  with  this  primitive  point 
of  view  easier  than  it  used  to  be.  It  was  only  a  little 
while  ago  that  our  Political  Economy  still  kept  much 
of  that  air  of  pseudo-infallibility  which  it  brought  out 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  science,  in  its  early 
history,  considered  itself  an  exact  science.  Not  the 
changeable  thing  called  human  sentiment  or  ethical 
feeling  was  the  subject  for  study,  but  something  that 
was  as  fixed  and  stable  as  the  laws  of  Nature,  even 
the  laws  of  wealth.  But  now  the  unity  and  immuta- 
bility of  the  science  appear  to  be  breaking  up.  The 
ethical  element  is  pushing  itself  in.  Our  century 
inherited  a  State  built  by  men  of  a  most  dogmatic 
habit  of  mind  in  things  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal. 
They  bequeathed  to  us  certain  well-settled  principles 
of  polity.  We  have  not  been  able,  however,  to  keep 
them  settled.  Criticism  has  shaken  the  old  supports, 
and  disturbed  the  unseen  foundations  of  society. 
The  motives  that  drew  their  sap  from  the  sense  of 
divine  authority  everywhere  present  in  the  world  of 
our  fathers  are  dying  at  the  root,  so  far  as  large 
numbers  of  men  are  concerned.  Thus  the  question 
of  State-making  is  coming  to  the  front.  Economics, 
dealing  with  that  larger  question,  finds  that  the  in- 
vestigation opens  at  many  points  into  the  field  of 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  165 

ethics.  Aristotle's  point  of  view  —  How  shall  we 
make  good  citizens?  —  has  far  more  bearing  upon 
economics  than  it  used  to  have.  The  boundaries  of 
the  science,  that  were  once  supposed  to  be  exact,  be- 
came in  some  critical  places  uncertain  and  wavering. 
A  measure  of  sympathy  with  the  primitive  view  of 
economics  is  easier  than  it  was  a  while  ago. 

As  a  consequence  of  antiquity's  uniform  position 
in  this  matter,  Economics,  when  treated  with  any  dis- 
tinctness, were  brought  into  the  light  of  a  statesman- 
ship that  aimed  at  the  prevention  of  revolution.  The 
Greek  City-State,  being  small  and  highly  organized, 
lived  largely  on  its  nerves.  The  rich  and  the  poor 
were  at  close  quarters  all  the  time.  The  machinery 
of  government  was  easily  manipulated.  Hence  Greek 
political  theory,  including  economic  theory,  was  for 
the  most  part  a  study  in  the  causes  and  cures  of 
revolution.  Plato's  ideal  of  righteousness  is  a  law, 
written  and  unwritten,  that  shall  keep  every  man  in 
his  place,  not  permitting  the  shoemaker  to  write  to 
the  newspaper,  or  the  motorman  to  read  Emerson. 
Aristotle  thought  that  righteousness,  meaning  social 
righteousness,  should  chiefly  concern  itself  with  what 
we  call  the  problem  of  distribution. 

The  aim  of  Political  Economy,  then,  was  to  under- 
stand, not  the  laws  of  wealth,  but  the  laws  of  social 
stability.  The  Romans  too,  so  far  as  they  had  any 
theory  of  economics,  made  it  a  foot-note  to  the 
definition  of  the  good  and  useful  citizen.  And  the 
fact  that  the  thinkers  of  antiquity  started  and  ended 
with  ethics,  seeking  a  definition  of  the  ideal  citizen 
and  adjusting  economics  to  it,  is  the  reason  why 
they  come  by  so  broad  and  short  a  road  to  some 


1 66          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

doctrine  of  equality.  Even  Aristotle,  after  he  has 
keenly  criticised  the  communistic  schemes  of  his  time 
by  saying  that  the  communists  must  attain  something 
deeper  than  an  equality  of  possessions,  namely,  an 
equality  of  desires,  himself  affirms  that  the  social  law, 
righteousness,  must  aim  at  the  prevention  of  great 
riches  and  poverty.  And  Plutarch,  when  he  praised 
the  legislation  of  Lycurgus  for  aiming  at  equality, 
unquestionably  spoke  for  the  best  mind  of  his  day.63 
The  distance  from  the  highest  political  conscience  to 
the  question  of  demand  and  supply  is  in  our  day  a 
long  one.  In  antiquity  it  was  only  a  step,  and  a 
short  one  at  that. 

With  the  two  points  already  made  goes  a  third. 
Nature  and  her  functions  came  close  to  the  surface. 
Human  activity  played  an  insignificant  part  before 
theory.  Charles  Lamb,  discussing  in  his  charming 
way  the  origin  of  the  habit  of  saying  grace,  assigns 
the  first  grace  to  the  .hunter's  age,  when,  owing  to 
the  uncertainties  of  hunter's  luck,  "a  bellyful  was  a 
windfall."  That  is  a  humorous  illustration  of  the 
closeness  of  primitive  human  life  to  natural  condi- 
tions. There  must  be  in  most  of  us  something  that 
sympathizes  with  Goethe,  who  had  a  sense  of  being 
shut  in  at  the  winter  solstice  and  a  sense  of  expan- 
sive joy  when  the  days  began  to  perceptibly  lengthen. 
If  the  first  signs  of  Spring  send  the  sap  of  new  life 
with  a  rush  to  our  hearts,  what  must  have  been  the 
exultation  in  the  eyes  of  our  New  England  ancestors 
when,  after  a  hard  winter,  they  saw  the  first  blue- 
bird ?  They  had  few  barricades  against  Nature, 
while  we  have  many.  Had  they  not  been  Puritans, 
they  would  have  caught,  as  we  cannot,  the  thrill  of 


v  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  167 

the  sick  king's  words :  "  O  Westmoreland,  thou  art 
to  me  a  summer  bird,  that  ever  in  the  haunch  of 
winter,  sing'st  the  lifting  up  of  spring." 

The  well-to-do  classes  of  Greece  and  Rome  were 
better  housed  and  lived  under  a  kindlier  sky  than  our 
ancestors.  And  the  roads  of  the  Empire  were  the 
best  the  world  knew  until  the  other  day.  But  so  far 
as  the  closeness  of  Nature  to  human  experience  went, 
they,  because  of  their  Paganism,  felt  it  far  more 
deeply  than  we  ever  can ;  so  that  man's  part  in  the 
economy  of  production  bulked  very  small  before  their 
eyes.  Nature  lay  close  to  the  surface  of  economic 
activity.  There*  was  no  appreciable  gap  in  theory 
between  the  raw  material  and  the  finished  product. 
Such  a  thought  as  the  conquest  of  Nature,  a  com- 
monplace with  us,  never  visited  their  minds.  Reli- 
gion conspired  with  economic  conditions  to  disguise 
the  significance  of  man's  activities  in  the  universe. 
Its  tendency  is  seen  in  the  feeling  of  Herodotus 
touching  Xerxes'  bridge  over  the  Hellespont.  He 
expressed  the  common  sentiment  and  that  was  a 
deep  form  of  the  feeling  of  Cuddie's  mother,  when 
she  lifted  up  her  voice  against  the  atheism  of 
winnowing-machines  because  they  forced  the  Lord's 
hand  and  created  a  breeze  before  the  time. 

The  effect  of  this  belittlement  of  man's  part  in  the 
economy  of  the  world  is  seen  in  the  Greek  theory  of 
art.  They  conceived  that  art  had  no  function  save 
to  imitate  Nature.64  And  they  the  most  creative 
people  in  matters  of  beauty  the  world  has  ever  seen ! 
'Their  function  in  history  was  to  develop  and  define 
the  individual.  Through  them  history  drew  the  first 
deep  breath  of  freedom.  Aristotle  spoke  for  the 


168  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

Greek  genius  when  he  described  the  essence  of  virtue 
as  energy,  forthputtingness,  the  imposition  of  form 
upon  matter.  All  this  stands  in  clear  light  against 
the  background  of  Oriental  passiveness.  Yet  this 
same  people,  when  they  came  to  the  theory  of  art, 
could  so  little  understand  their  own  significance,  that 
they  set  a  very  low  estimate  on  man's  work  in  Nature. 

The  closeness  of  Nature  to  the  surface  is  seen 
again  in  Aristotle's  belief  that  property  acquired  by 
trade  had  no  root  in  true  law.  Only  the  gains  of 
agriculture,  of  fishing  and  hunting,  are  natural  gains. 
Only  the  first-hand  yield  of  Nature  is  ethically  sound. 
How  broad  a  basis  in  universal  feeling  such  notions 
have  had,  is  suggested  by  the  following  passage  from 
Jefferson's  Notes  on  Virginia.  "  Generally  speak- 
ing, the  proportion  which  the  aggregate  of  the  other 
classes  of  citizens  bears  in  any  state  to  that  of  its 
husbandman  is  the  proportion  of  its  unsound  to  its 
healthy  parts,  and  is  a  good  enough  barometer 
whereby  to  measure  its  corruption.  .  .  .  Those  who 
labor  in  the  earth  are  the  chosen  people  of  God,  if 
ever  he  had  a  chosen  people,  whose  breasts  he  has 
made  his  peculiar  deposit  for  substantial  and  genuine 
virtue."65  All  of  this,  barring  the  sceptical  and  sar- 
castic words  "  if  ever  he  had  a  people,"  would  have 
been  heartily  seconded  by  Ambrose,  the  great  bishop 
of  Milan  who  pictured  the  peasant  as  Nature's 
consort. 

Still  another  example  is  the  view  of  raw  material 
and  resultant  property  rights  entertained  by  Roman 
law.  The  primitive  feeling  was  that  man  was  in 
no  sense  a  creator  of  values.  Hence  the  first  opinion 
of  law  was  that  the  owner  of  the  raw  material  must 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  169 

be  in  some  sense  the  owner  of  the  finished  product, 
no  matter  who  did  the  finishing  work.  And  spite 
of  the  growing  division  of  labor,  and  the  many 
difficulties  caused  by  this  clod-hopper's  theory  of 
values,  it  continued  to  be  held  until  the  time  of 
Augustus.  In  the  division  of  legal  opinion  which 
then  became  marked,  the  old  theory  was  stoutly 
defended  on  the  ground  that  "without  the  aid  of 
Nature,  no  sort  of  thing  can  be  made."  The  new 
view  was  that  the  man  who,  for  example,  cast  bronze 
into  a  statue,  acquired  a  complete  title  by  paying  for 
the  raw  material  without  going  besides  through  a  legal 
process  by  which  the  original  owner  formally  sur- 
rendered his  rights.66 

Such  primitive  realism  in  economics  should  in 
logic  keep  company  with  the  crudest  realism  in 
metaphysics.  In  point  of  fact  the  two  are  often 
found  together.  Dr.  Johnson,  who  refuted  Berkeley 
by  kicking  a  stone,  also  had  profound  contempt  for 
trade,  and  was  certain  that  the  business  of  England, 
then  entering  the  manufacturing  stage,  would  soon 
return  to  the  solid  basis  of  agriculture. 

Out  of  the  views  described  grew,  as  a  fourth  point, 
the  failure  to  appreciate  commerce.  Plato  desired 
to  have  his  ideal  city  planted  well  inland.  Aristotle 
condemned  money  made  by  commerce,  as  compared 
with  money  made,  by  farming,  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
artificial.  Hence  he  would  have  shut  out  from  any 
part  in  government  the  man  who  had  made  his 
money  in  that  way. 

And,  along  with  all  this,  antiquity  had  a  deep- 
seated  prejudice  against  interest.  Interest  was  iden- 
tified with  usury,  and  usury  was  accounted  contrary 


I/O          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

to  Nature.  Plato,  in  the  Laws,  forbids  interest.  No 
debtor  was  to  be  legally  bound  to  pay  it.  Thus  it 
was  put  on  the  footing  of  a  gambling  debt  to-day. 
Aristotle  condemned  it  on  the  ground  that  metal 
is  barren,  producing  nothing,  so  that  interest  is  an 
unnatural  growth.  So  the  thinker  who  summed  up 
the  idealistic  development  of  Greece  does  not  rise 
above  the  peasant's  economic  realism,  when  he 
comes  to  the  question  of  credit.  Even  at  Rome, 
whither  the  plunder  of  the  world  had  all  gone,  and 
where  the  money-lenders  and  capitalists  of  the 
Empire  lived,  even  at  Rome  the  men  whose  thoughts 
did  not  set  with  the  sun  held,  without  exception,  to 
the  same  view  of  interest.  Cato  the  Elder,  in  the 
preface  to  his  treatise  on  Agriculture,  says  that  lend- 
ing money  on  interest  is  dishonorable ;  and  that, 
accordingly,  the  forefathers  made  the  law  that  the 
thief  should  be  compelled  to  make  twofold  com- 
pensation, but  the  man  who  took  interest  fourfold. 
Cicero  reports  that  Cato  held  lending  on  inter- 
est to  be  as  bad  as  murder.67  The  Old  Testament 
takes  the  same  ground.  The  permission  to  lend 
to  a  non-Israelite  (Deut.  xxiii.  20)  confirms  the 
assertion  that  antiquity  had  an  inbred  horror  of 
interest,  seeing  that  interest  taken  from  a  man  out- 
side the  pale  of  Israel  was  regarded  in  effect  as  a 
part  of  the  law  of  war.  Without  exception,  then, 
the  higher  thought  of  the  old  world  considered 
interest  contrary  to  Nature. 

Another  part  of  the  common  stock  of  ideas  was 
the  theory  of  the  minimum  in  wants.  Epictetus  puts 
it  well :  "  The  measure  of  possession  (property)  is  to 
every  man  the  body,  as  the  foot  is  of  the  shoe.  If 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  I/I 

then  you  stand  on  this  rule  (the  demands  of  the  body) 
you  will  maintain  the  measure ;  but  if  you  pass  be- 
yond it,  you  must  then  of  necessity  be  hurried  as  it 
were  down  a  precipice.  As  also  in  the  matter  of  the 
shoe,  if  you  go  beyond  the  (necessities  of  the)  foot, 
the  shoe  is  gilded,  then  of  a  purple  color,  then  em- 
broidered :  for  there  is  no  limit  to  that  which  has 
once  passed  the  true  measure."68  In  the  same  vein 
Plutarch  approves  Lycurgus  for  the  outlawry  of  all 
needless  and  superfluous  wants.69  Upon  this  point 
all  the  men  whose  opinions  carried  weight  were 
agreed.  Herakleides  of  Pontos  was,  perhaps,  the 
only  philosopher  of  any  name  who  defended  luxury.70 
And  he  was  a  thinker  no  better  than  third  rate.  For 
us,  the  multiplication  of  wants  is  a 'true  and  important 
law.71  But  for  antiquity  the  minimum  of  wants  was 
the  only  law,  and  everything  above  it  was  unnatural 
and  hateful.  Sceptics,  Epicureans,  Stoics,  might 
differ  fundamentally  at  other  points.  Here  they 
agreed. 

These  six  ideas  —  the  inclusion  of  Political  Econ- 
omy in  Ethics,  the  lively  interest  in  the  prevention  of 
revolutions,  the  nearness  of  Nature  to  the  surface  of 
feeling,  the  contempt  for  commerce,  the  horror  of  in- 
terest, and  the  dogma  of  the  minimum  in  wants  — 
were  the  common  stock  of  antiquity.  In  one  form  or 
another  they  became  the  small  change  of  every  one 
who  dealt  with  his  neighbor  in  moral  goods.  Neces- 
sarily, the  outstanding  individual  who  shook  off  all 
the  forms  of  existing  society,  who  entered  the  monas- 
tery in  order  that  he  might  insure  in  terms  of  the 
other  world  that  definition  of  man  which  took  in  the 
goods  common  to  all  men  and  only  those,  carried 


172  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

with  him  this  capital  of  the  world's  deepest  experi- 
ence. 

If  we  remember  that  monasticism  was  the  isolation 
of  the  moral  ideal ;  that  the  monks  were  the  Puritans 
of  their  time,  and  that  consequently  they  were  the 
men  who  had  a  grand  passion  for  goodness ;  that 
their  conception  of  God  was  not  a  scholastic  mono- 
theism, willing  to  compromise  with  popular  polytheism 
and  often  unclear  in  its  outlines,  but  an  absolutely 
clear  and  simple  and  uncompromising  monotheism 
with  vast  driving  power;  and  that  the  Church  they 
helped  so  largely  to  build  up,  was  infallible  or  noth- 
ing, —  it  is  easy  to  foretell  the  conclusion  of  monasti- 
cism touching  the  central  points  of  economics.  Those 
conclusions  were  inevitable.  The  very  warp  of  the 
monastic  mind  must  be  unravelled,  in  order  to  avoid 
them.  It  is  necessary  to  emphasize  this  with  all  our 
power.  For,  without  it,  we  shall  not  appreciate  the 
significance  of  monasticism  in  the  history  of  the  social 
idea.  Consider,  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
monks  created  nothing  in  this  quarter,  but  inherited 
the  ideals  of  all  antiquity ;  and  in  the  second  place, 
that  the  monasteries  were  the  places  where  for  cen- 
turies the  Puritans  of  the  world,  with  everything  to 
favor  them,  free  from  entangling  alliances  with  oppos- 
ing social  points  of  view,  having  a  vacuum  so  far  as 
one  was  possible  in  time  and  space,  concentrated  and 
specialized  the  moralizing  forces  of  their  age,  —  and 
we  may  be  prepared  to  estimate  aright  the  weight 
and  momentum  with  which  those  ideas  descended 
upon  the  youthful  mind  of  modernity. 

Imagine  the  genius  of  monasticism,  the  universal 
individual  of  antiquity  who  has  abandoned  society 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  173 

and  taken  with  him  the  stock  of  ideas  just  described, 
looking  back  upon  the  terrestrial  order  of  things  he 
has  left  behind  him.  He  lumps  the  whole  of  it  as 
positive,  with  no  root  in  Nature.  To  us  it  seems  odd 
that  a  man  in  his  senses  could  hold  the  monastic  life 
to  be  the  primitive  life.  We  can  understand  his  con- 
clusion, that  the  life  of  his  time  was  irredeemably  bad, 
and  that  he  must  flee  from  it  as  Pilgrim  fled  from  his 
native  city,  his  fingers  in  his  ears  and  crying  "life, 
life."  But  how  he  should  hold  the  ascetic  regime  to 
be  the  one  with  which  history  began,  we  cannot  see. 
That  however  is  just  what  he  did.  Nilus,  addressing 
his  fellow-monks,  says,  "  It  is  good  to  go  back  to  the 
blessed  life  of  the  ancients."  The  monastic  life  is 
the  primitive  life.72  Civilization,  with  all  its  mate- 
rial, social,  and  political  wealth,  is  an  afterthought, 
a  mere  episode  in  the  divine  drama. 

Yet,  after  all,  this  need  not  surprise  us.  If  the 
man  of  antiquity  was  to  justify  even  to  himself  his 
retreat  from  society,  there  was  but  one  way  for  him 
to  think.  Given  the  stock  of  opinions  he  inherited, 
the  path  of  his  mind  was  plainly  marked  out  for  him. 
Josephus,  commenting  on  the  sacrifice  of  Cain,  says 
that  God  preferred  Abel's  sacrifice,  because  Cain, 
being  an  husbandman,  offered  to  God  gifts  that  were 
artificial ;  while  Abel's  sacrifice  consisted  of  things 
that  grew  of  themselves.73  This  is  a  single  in- 
stance out  of  hundreds  that  might  be  collected  from 
Jews  and  Christians  and  Gentiles.  The  reasoning  of 
Josephus  on  Agriculture  came  to  the  same  thing  as 
Aristotle's  reasoning  on  Commerce.  One  strain  ran 
through  the  higher  mind  of  the  whole  Mediterranean 
world.  The  logical  mould  in  which  ideas  about  the 


174  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

true  and  abiding  core  of  all  things  were  sure  to  be 
cast  was  the  category  of  identity.  The  moderns 
have  finally  won  the  category  of  relation.  There 
is  for  us  no  unity  without  a  manifold.  The  will  or 
mind  that  is  not  in  relations  is  a  bare  empty  shell. 
The  real  is  the  related. 

We  have  attained  the  thought  of  evolution.  Thanks 
to  it,  two  thoughts  come  within  our  reach  which  the 
men  of  antiquity  could  not  attain  unto.  In  the  first 
place,  we  can  conceive  that  change  is  inherent  in  law, 
that  the  changeable,  as  such,  may  be  as  orderly  and 
righteous  as  the  unchangeable  as  such.  This  thought 
the  ancients  could  not  reach.  Aristotle's  theory  of 
development  looked  towards  it,  but  his  theory  made 
no  headway  after  him  and  did  not  even  succeed  in  re- 
constructing his  own  basal  view.  Only  the  immuta- 
ble could  be  true/  The  famous  motto  of  St.  Vincent 
of  Lerins,  making  the  body  of  Christian  truth  to  be 
that  which  had  been  held  everywhere  and  always  and 
by  everybody,  was  simply  the  common  logic  of  the 
whole  world  used  and  canonized  by  an  authoritative 
Church.  That  which  changes  is  inherently  bad.  Is 
it  not  clear  that  men  who  were  dominated  by  this 
feeling  were  constrained  by  the  necessities  of  their 
own  mind  to  think,  not  only  that  what  was  dearest 
to  them  must  be  deepest  in  the  universe,  —  no  man, 
whatever  his  mental  apparatus,  can  ever  think  other- 
wise,—  but  that  it  was  the  earliest  thing  in  time  ?  that 
it  was  primitive  ?  that  history  began  with  it  ? 

In  the  second  place,  thanks  to  the  concept  of  evo- 
lution, it  is  possible  for  us  to  think  that  the  second 
thing  in  a  series  may  be  better  than  the  first,  and  the 
third  better  than  the  second,  and  the  last  best  of  all. 


V  GENESIS   OF   THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  175 

But  without  the  help  of  that  great  concept,  men  had 
to  believe  that  the  second  was  either  worse  than  the 
first  or  identical  with  it.  There  could  be  no  real 
history  when  once  men  betook  themselves  to  meta- 
physics. The  base  of  all  things  was  the  unrelated, 
self-identical,  inmost  being  of  God.  And  the  unit  of 
measure  in  the  idealizing  interpretation  of  visible 
things  was  the  human  monad  answering  to  the 
divine  monad,  simple  and  persistent  and  immutable. 
History  was  not  thought  of  as  a  real  process.  Con- 
sequently when  a  man  like  Philo,  the  great  Jew,  under- 
took to  interpret  the  sacred  past,  he  necessarily  read 
whatever  had  a  hold  on  his  mind  back  into  the  earli- 
est stages.  The  best  must  be  first.  History's  one 
value  was  to  be  symbolical  of  the  eternal  verities, 
and  they  are  the  same  in  every  age.  Whatever  is 
good,  is  immutable. 

It  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness had  no  logical  apparatus  of  its  own. 
When  the  life  and  mind  of  the  New  Testament  came 
to  be  speculatively  construed,  every  term  and  con- 
cept used  in  the  process  had  been  shaped  in  the 
workshop  of  Greece.  When  therefore  the  superb 
moral  enthusiasm  of  Christianity  took  up  these  cate- 
gories of  antiquity,  when  monastic  rigorism  put  in 
play  the  inherited  apparatus  and  by  means  of  it 
assessed  the  institutions  and  traditions  which  consti- 
tuted terrestrial  society,  there  was  just  one  thing 
that  could  happen.  The  higher  Christian  life  as  the 
monk  understood  it  had  to  be  pictured  as  the  primi- 
tive and  elemental  life. 

On  the  lighter  side  of  the  subject,  the  puritanizing 
feeling  about  ornament  is  in  evidence.  The  Apos- 


176  GENESIS   OP  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

tolic  constitutions  say :  "  Do  not  paint  the  face, 
which  is  God's  workmanship."74  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria thinks  that  shaving  is  wrong,  for  God  meant 
man  to  have  a  beard  as  the  symbol  of  strength  and 
authority.75  It  is  "  against  Nature  to  pierce  the 
ear."  "6  Cyprian,  voicing  an  old  and  widespread 
opinion,  declares  that  ornaments  in  general  are  the 
invention  of  the  fallen  angels ;  and  that  adornment 
is  against  truth.77  The  monks  carried  this  reasoning 
to  the  full  length  of  its  principle.  They  condemned 
the  whole  of  civilization  as  being  a  corruption  of 
Nature.  The  monastic  life  was  the  world's  return  to 
health.  Thereby  life  shone  out  in  the  beauty  it  had 
when  it  left  God's  hands. 

On  the  more  serious  side,  the  story  of  the  so- 
called  Puritan  conscience  is  in  evidence.  As  a  rule, 
the  people  who  make  the  most  bother  about  it  are  they 
who  are  least  burdened  with  conscience  of  any  kind. 
But  the  to-do  made  over  it  is  proof  of  its  reality. 
And  as  a  phenomenon  of  modern  life,  its  history  is 
closely  related  to  the  social  question. 

The  first  period  in  the  history  is  prophetism  in 
Israel.  The  prophets  were  the  earliest  Puritans, 
irreconcilable  with  the  standing  social  order,  always 
protesting.  The  second  period  is  the  outburst  of 
regenerating  enthusiasm  caused  by  Christianity. 
The  epistle  to  Diognetus  calls  Christians  the  soul 
of  the  world.  The  back-bone  of  the  practical 
argument  for  Christianity  was  always  the  appeal 
to  the  lives  of  converts.  Men  who  yesterday  looked 
on  the  fashionable  heathen  sins  as  good  form  do 
now  altogether  disown  them.  The  Christians  were 
the  soul  of  the  world ;  and  the  soul  looked  with 


V  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  177 

austere  eyes  on  the  body,  which  was  temporary 
society. 

The  third  period  is  the  conflict  between  Montanism 
and  the  Catholic  Church.  The  latter  was  seeking  to 
come  to  an  understanding  with  the  Empire ;  while 
the  former  looked  with  horror  upon  such  a  course. 
The  fourth  period  is  the  triumph  of  monasticism. 
Henceforth  there  are  to  be  in  effect  two  Churches,  — 
the  outer  and  the  inner.  The  outer  Church  makes 
and  keeps  some  sort  of  terms  with  society.  The 
inner  Church  totally  condemns  and  disowns  society. 
Through  the  Middle  Ages  the  monastery,  confront- 
ing the  castle  and  the  town,  housed  the  Puritan  con- 
science. Now  and  then  appeared  signs  that  some 
day  the  enclosing  walls  must  give  way  and  the  Puri- 
tan conscience  invade  society.  The  struggle  of  the 
Franciscans  over  the  question  of  taking  the  monas- 
tic vow  of  poverty  seriously,  and  the  visions  and 
prophecies  of  Joachim  of  Fiore  who  deeply  influ- 
enced Francis,  showed  that  the  two  Churches  could 
not  permanently  divide  the  field  between  them.  The 
career  of  Savonarola,  his  bonfire  of  toys,  is  the  first 
pronounced  outbreak  of  the  pent-up  conscience. 

The  fifth  period  is  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
especially  on  its  Calvinistic  side.  The  two  Churches 
are  now  unified.  The  monk  puts  on  citizen's  clothes, 
marries,  and  votes.  The  Puritan  conscience  takes 
"  thorough  "  for  its  watchword.  It  sets  out  to  draw 
a  straight  furrow  from  side  to  side  of  society.  Rigor- 
ism becomes  a  great  social  and  political  force. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  the  monks  main- 
tained this  continuity  of  conscience,  it  is  possible  that 
serious  men  of  to-day  might  read  Pepys'  diary  and 


178          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

never  start  a  smile  when  they  come  again  and  again 
to  passages  which  prove  that  no  leader  of  fashion 
nowadays  could  dwell  more  fondly  than  he  on  the 
subject  of  brave  clothes.  This  is  the  surface  hint  of 
a  very  deep  tendency.  If  we  inherit  the  equipment 
of  our  reason  from  Greece,  we  inherit  the  equipment 
of  our  conscience  from  the  Bible  through  the  monks. 
Monasticism  made  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  Nature  a  radi- 
cal principle.  If  we  date  the  beginning  of  modern 
history  from  the  fourteenth  century,  surely  the  fact 
that  for  a  thousand  years  before  it  the  monastery  was 
the  home  and  fortress  of  the  conscience,  has  a  signifi- 
cance almost  beyond  estimate.  The  history  of  the 
great  monastic  orders  shows  plainly  that  the  heart  of 
Europe  was  in  the  movement.  No  sooner  did  one 
order  decay  than  a  new  and  more  thorough  one  took 
its  place.  Throughout  the  whole  period  during  which 
the  foundations  of  modernity  were  being  laid,  the 
high  thinking  and  true  living  of  the  world  were  done 
almost  wholly  in  the  monasteries.  We  may  as  easily 
bow  the  law  of  gravitation  off  the  planet,  as  suppose 
that  contemporary  political  and  social  theories  do  not 
broadly  betray  the  consequences  of  that  fact 

And  the  effect  must  convey  the  quality  of  the  cause. 
Seeing  then  that  the  cause  is  an  infallible  conviction 
touching  the  infinite  worth  of  the  common,  the  univer- 
sal individual ;  seeing  also  that  the  attendant  concep- 
tion of  Nature  ran  the  knife  just  below  the  sod,  cutting 
the  roots  of  traditional  and  aristocratic  valuations  and 
assessments;  and  seeing,  finally,  that  monasticism 
fostered  a  kind  of  conscience  that  knows  no  com- 
promise, —  who  can  doubt  concerning  the  quality  of 
the  effect? 


v  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  179 

The  judgment  of  the  early  monks  on  civilization 
was  colored  by  their  abhorrence  of  life  in  the  great 
cities.  No  one  city  has  ever  dominated  the  world's 
imagination  in  a  degree  to  be  compared  with  Rome. 
Far  more  even  than  Paris  to  France  was  the  capital 
to  the  Empire.  Now  luxury  in  Rome  went  to  hideous 
lengths.  Friedlander  has  striven  with  great  force  to 
qualify  the  traditional  opinions  on  that  point.  And 
with  a  measure  of  success  :  for  it  should  be  clear  that 
the  impassioned  pictures  of  Christian  apologetes  and 
Roman  satirists  are  not  altogether  solid  data  for  a 
conclusion.  Yet,  after  he  has  done  his  best,  there  is 
enough  left  to  constitute  an  absolute  "  tragedy  of  dis- 
sipation." And  as  for  amusements,  it  was  a  fair  ques- 
tion whether  the  stage  in  the  matter  of  foulness  did 
not  outdo  the  amphitheatre  in  the  matter  of  brutality. 
The  other  cities  of  the  Empire  followed  Rome's  suit 
at  such  a  pace  as  their  lesser  wealth  permitted.  No 
wonder  that  conscience  cried  out  against  the  whole 
affair.  There  had  been  growing  up  amongst  the 
Romans  themselves  a  feeling  in  favor  of  country  life. 
Virgil  manifests  it  in  the  sweet  and  subtle  nature- 
sense  of  the  Eclogues  and  Georgics.  Varro  expressed 
it  in  sober  prose  when  he  wrote,  "  Divine  nature 
gave  the  fields,  human  art  built  cities."  The  modern 
version  of  that  saying  is  Cowper's,  "  Man  made 
the  city,  God  made  the  country."  Civilization  was 
coming  under  suspicion  in  the  minds  of  the  very  men 
who  had  almost  a  monopoly  of  its  prerogatives. 

As  regards  luxury,  the  monks  did  but  apply  the 
maxim  "  thorough  "  to  the  feeling  of  later  antiquity. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  in  his  catalogue  of  things  to  be 
thankful  for,  writes,  "  I  learned  (from  my  Governor) 


ISO          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

to  want  little,"  and  "  from  Diognetus  to  desire  a 
plank  bed  and  skin."  Make  the  emperor  a  dogmatic 
monotheist,  giving  no  quarter  to  half-truths,  and  he 
would  easily  exchange  his  crown  for  a  cowl. 

It  was  not  more  than  a  step  to  the  adoption  of  the 
life  of  poverty  as  the  ideal  life.  How  consistent  the 
step  was  with  the  deeper  convictions  of  the  idealist, 
is  shown  by  the  striking  resemblance  between  the 
Platonic  Republic  and  the  Mediaeval  City  of  God. 
Plato's  ruling  class  is  exactly  like  the  monks  in  the 
two  fundamental  things,  —  refusal  of  marriage  and 
disowning  of  property.  There  is  no  close  literary 
connection  between  the  two  ideals.  The  connection 
is  deeper  than  literature,  it  is  one  of  life.  Both  the 
Platonic  Republic  and  the  Mediaeval  City  are  studies 
of  social  unity.  They  agree  as  to  the  things  necessary 
to  peace.  One  of  them  is  that  there  must  be  no 
private  property  amongst  the  best  men.  Only  so 
could  the  social  divisions  resulting  from  wealth  be 
gotten  rid  of.  But  while  the  two  politics  largely  agreed 
at  this  and  some  other  main  points,  they  differed 
in  that  the  one  was  bare  theory,  while  the  other  was 
an  achievement.  The  Monastic  City  was  more  than 
a  dream,  it  was  even  more  than  an  experiment,  it  was 
a  fixed  constitution  for  the  spiritual  life. 

Rousseau  said  to  the  eighteenth  century :  Let  us 
return  to  Nature.  The  monks  thought  that  they  had 
succeeded  in  returning  —  strange  as  their  thought  may 
appear  to  us.  They  had  stripped  off  everything  con- 
ventional and  thrown  all  artificialities  upon  the  muck- 
heap.  The  elemental  and  essential  remained.  The 
monk  was  the  outstanding  individual  of  antiquity 
now  at  last  wholly  foot-loose.  He  confederated  him- 


v  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  l8l 

self  with  other  men  of  like  mind,  to  found  a  new  kind 
of  society.  Nobody  could  join  it,  unless  he  disowned 
all  that  looked  most  precious  in  the  light  of  the  exist- 
ing social  constitution.  The  monk  was  the  yokefellow 
of  the  fundamental,  a  consort  of  the  eternal,  a  revolu- 
tionist who  believed  that  no  half-measures  could  cure 
the  ills  of  the  world.  The  inner  Church  which  housed 
him  stood  on  the  basis  of  extreme  otherworldliness. 
But  she  kept  one  foot  planted  firmly  in  this  world. 
And  little  by  little  the  inner  Church  mastered  the 
outer  Church.  The  monks,  the  "regulars,"  got  the 
better  of  the  "  seculars"  or  non-monastic  clergy;  until 
at  last  the  monastic  view  of  society,  heading  up  in 
Popes  of  imperial  type,  fought  and  conquered  the 
Empire. 

The  dark  side  of  monasticism  is  very  easy  to  see. 
The  Christian  who  looks  at  it  from  the  standpoint  of 
St.  Paul  shall  find  in  it  a  vast  deal  of  spiritual  vulgar- 
ity, a  method  of  "milking  righteousness  "  wholesale. 
The  man  of  reason  is  shocked  by  its  superstitions,  the 
man  of  taste  by  its  partial  glorification  of  dirt.  The 
statesman  will  condemn  it,  because  by  its  vows  of 
poverty  and  celibacy  and  obedience  it  makes  a  full 
share  in  the  life  of  the  family  and  the  State  impossible 
for  the  picked  men  and  women,  thus  forcing  the  State 
to  be  either  a  shadow  of  the  Church  or  a  policeman's 
alliance.  But  we  stand  at  none  of  these  points  of 
view.  Caesar  killed  more  than  one  man  in  Gaul,  it  is 
believed.  Yet  by  his  conquest  of  Gaul  he  wrought  a 
great  work  for  history.  So  with  monasticism.  What- 
ever its  defects,  however  out  of  the  question  it  is  for 
the  Christianity  of  the  future  living  in  the  presence  of 
the  free  State,  none  the  less  it  wrought  a  great  nega- 


1 82  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

tive  work  for  the  free  State  itself  by  putting  all  the 
political  and  social  forms  of  antiquity  into  disrepute, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  accomplished  a  great  positive 
work  by  assessing  the  universal  individual  at  so  high 
a  figure  that  the  State  which  is  to  contain  him  and 
satisfy  him  must  be  a  State  of  far  deeper  root  and 
wider  scope  than  the  free  State  of  antiquity. 

Monasticism  gave  to  Occidental  literature  a  new 
epic,  —  the  epic  of  poverty.  It  is  a  far  cry  indeed 
from  Homer  to  the  bones  of  the  Saints.  Yet  the 
bones  of  the  Saints  stood  for  something  that  lay 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  heroes.  The  lives  of  the 
Saints  were  the  main  food  of  the  higher  imagination 
of  Europe  for  centuries.  They  were  the  higher  novel 
of  the  people  who  read.  There  is  no  better  test  of 
what  is  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  a  period  than  its 
greater  novels.  They  have  philosophy  and  psycho- 
logic analysis ;  but  not  enough  of  either  to  keep  them 
aloof  from  the  majority,  and  so  they  both  answer  to 
and  mould  popular  ideals.  They  express  that  portion 
of  the  deep  thought  and  chastened  feeling  of  the 
day  which  finds  entrance  into  the  common  language. 
Now  the  lives  of  the  Saints  were  largely  fact,  al- 
though each  in  its  measure  had  a  flowing  drapery 
of  fiction.  The  proportion  does  not  concern  us.  It 
is  enough  that  they  were  the  novel,  the  drama,  the 
hero  stories  of  the  better  Europe,  the  Europe  that 
had  aspirations,  that  refused  to  recognize  the  dead 
weight  of  brutality  and  inertia  as  the  normal  or  even 
the  average  humanity.  The  saint,  who  at  death  left 
behind  him  his  bones  to  be  worshipped,  might  be  — 
in  a  majority  of  cases  probably  was  —  a  man  of  low 
degree.  He  therefore  represented  the  common,  the 


v  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  183 

elemental  man.  If  the  highest  good,  as  Democracy 
views  it,  consists  in  making  the  common  man  stand 
level  to  the  noblest  things,  then  surely  we  are  not  off 
the  trail  of  the  social  question  when  we  discover  the 
saint,  the  spiritual  hero  of  a  long  epoch,  focussing  the 
imagination  of  the  world  upon  this  common  individ- 
ual. The  epic  of  poverty  made  elemental  humanity 
shine  brighter  than  the  bravery  of  warriors  and  the 
splendor  of  kings. 

Renan,  in  his  address  at  the  Spinoza  anniversary 
of  1877,  referring  to  the  love  his  humbler  friends 
gave  him,  said,  "Their  judgment  (in  such  matters)  is 
almost  always  that  of  God."  78  The  thought  may 
be  carried  farther.  The  vital  changes  in  history  are 
in  the  main  changes  in  the  organs  of  opinion.  In  a 
monarchy  of  the  consistent  Oriental  type  the  king's 
judgment  is  a  dogma,  and  the  "opinions  of  all  others 
may  be  such  stuff  as  wind  is  made  of.  In  Greece 
and  Rome  the  opinions  of  the  citizen  had  in  them 
the  making  of  law.  But  citizenhood  was  limited,  so 
that  a  large  part  of  the  lowest  class  was  shut  out. 
The  area  of  public  opinion  must  be  widened.  And 
the  lives  of  the  Saints,  by  making  poverty  heroic  and 
installing  the  children  of  the  poor  as  rulers  of  the 
imagination,  helped  to  prepare  for  that  vast  exten- 
sion of  the  area  of  public  opinion  which  is  the  signa- 
ture of  our  own  time. 

Without  the  aid  of  the  monks  Wordsworth  could 
probably  not  have  made  the  lives  of  the  poor  the 
subject  of  his  song.  The  history  of  the  materials  of 
poetry  and  romance  is  fundamental  for  our  present 
study.  No  cause  can  go  far  that  does  not  create 
material  for  poetry.  The  world  has  had  aristocratic 


1 84          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE      CHAP,  v 

epics,  not  in  plenty,  yet  in  sufficient  quantity.  The 
democratic  epic  has  not  yet  been  written.  But  if 
ever  it  is  written,  then  the  student  of  the  world's 
literature  in  some  far-away  age,  looking  back  from 
his  vantage-ground,  may  be  inclined  to  set  down 
the  lives  of  the  Saints,  with  their  deep  hold  on 
the  imagination  of  Europe,  as  an  essential  part  in  the 
story  of  its  genesis. 


VI 

FROM  the  fifth  century  onward  the  Church  was 
alone  in  the  field  of  higher  history.  The  self-glorifi- 
cation of  the  Teuton  has  sometimes  left  to  the  Church, 
so  far  as  the  development  of  the  State  is  concerned, 
hardly  more  than  a  step-motherly  function.  The 
stream  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty  is  described  as  flow- 
ing by  grace  of  its  own  inherent  strength,  from  its 
springs  in  the  German  forests,  through  a  steadily 
broadening  channel,  into  the  expansive  freedom  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  Barbarians  who  broke 
down  the  Empire  were  constitutional  noblemen  trav- 
elling incognito.  Hegel  did  well  when  he  put  the 
goal  of  universal  history  a  few  miles  beyond  Berlin. 
Englishmen  and  Americans  would  argue  with  him  in 
friendly  fashion  that  he  should  have  made  his  phi- 
losophy of  history  a  circular  letter  with  a  blank  space 
where  London  or  Washington  might  have  been  put 
at  pleasure.  That  however  is  a  mere  detail. 

Luckily  for  myself  I  acquired  at  the  outset  a  right 
to  be  one-sided  in  the  other  direction  by  frankly  con- 
fessing that  I  meant  to  be  one-sided.  I  am  therefore 
under  no  obligation  to  set  up  a  clearing-house  and 
balance  accounts,  showing  how  much  the  new  races 
brought  and  how  much  the  Church  gave.  And  when 
it  is  said  that  the  Church  was  left  alone  in  the  field  of 

185 


1 86          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

higher  history,  what  is  meant  is  that  she  monopolized 
the  spiritual  and  intellectual  interests.  The  whole 
inner  life  was  under  her  control.  In  her  hands  and 
hers  alone  lay  for  a  long  while  the  work  of  driving 
home  the  definition  of  man  which  issued  from  the 
union  of  forces  in  the  Mediterranean  world. 

The  unit  with  which  the  Church  operated  was  an 
individual  who,  in  principle,  was  outside  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  relationships  that  constitute  the  fam- 
ily and  the  State.  He  derived  none  of  his  value 
from  them.  And  when  he  found  himself  on  the  plane 
of  his  highest  duties  he  did  not  find  himself  in  debt 
to  them  to  the  extent  of  a  single  primary  obligation. 
This  is  the  meaning  of  the  distinction  between  the 
ethic  of  the  common  life  and  the  ethic  of  perfection. 
The  former  concerned  the  man  who  struck  deep  in 
the  affair  of  the  visible  world.  The  latter  concerned 
the  man  whose  mind  was  bent  wholly  upon  the 
other  world.  The  ethic  of  perfection  then  was  the 
code  of  the  absolute  individual,  who  carried  his  own 
value  in  himself,  depending  on  no  connection  save 
that  with  God.  His  relation  with  his  neighbor  was 
not  in  the  deepest  sense  a  part  of  him.  He  was  the 
derived  monad  in  relation  with  the  sovereign  monad. 

The  Church,  taking  this  absolute  individual  as  her 
unit  in  spiritual  measures  and  assessments,  made  his 
salvation  her  objective  point.  By  her  doctrine  of  in- 
fallibility she  sought  to  insure  him,  and  guarantee  his 
eternal  worth.  And  by  her  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  and 
her  map  of  Purgatory  she  sought  to  keep  open  for 
him  the  road  that  runs  to  the  centre  of  things. 

The  fact  that  the  individual,  taken  absolutely,  was 
the  unit  in  the  mediaeval  plan  is  disguised  by  the  impe- 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  187 

rial  institutionalism  of  the  plan.  We  are  apt  to  asso- 
ciate the  individual  with  Protestantism ;  and  to  think 
that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  direct  heir  of 
mediaeval  Christianity,  is  the  antipodes  of  Protestant- 
ism in  this  matter.  What  can  be  less  individualistic 
than  the  order  of  the  Jesuits,  which  takes  men  of  every 
nation  and  leaves  them  no  local  color,  no  flavor  of  the 
soil  ?  which  drives  full  home  the  principle  of  absolute 
obedience  ?  Yet  this  very  example  favors  the  propo- 
sition. The  Jesuits  are  the  logical  climax  of  the 
search  of  the  absolutely  individual  soul  after  an  as- 
sured salvation.  Of  course,  no  institution  so  vast  as 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  can  be  described  in  one 
sentence  —  or  many.  Numerous  elements  mix  in  its 
constitution.  I  would  not  therefore  be  thought  guilty 
of  the  irreverence  of  describing  it  in  a  phrase.  But  as 
to  the  point  in  issue,  if  we  keep  in  mind,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  the  Jesuits  are  the  last  of  the  great  monas- 
tic orders,  embodying  the  genius  of  mediaevalism  in 
its  splendid  rally  against  Protestantism ;  and,  on  the 
other,  that  monasticism  is  in  essence  the  surrender  of 
a  man's  relationships  in  order  that  the  man  himself 
may  be  saved,  the  proposition  may  look  more  reason- 
able. Extreme  Protestantism  inherits  the  unit  of  me- 
diaevalism—  man  conceived  on  a  spiritual  monad  — 
without  the  apparatus  that  can  alone  enable  the  unit 
to  do  its  perfect  ecclesiastical  work. 

Let  the  human  monad,  standing  outside  all  terres- 
trial relationships,  once  become  the  unit ;  let  the 
idea  of  God  as  transcendent  keep  it  company ;  let  a 
conception  of  revelation  to  match  this  idea  of  God 
and  man  be  developed ;  then  let  the  resultant  de- 
mand become  explicit  and  imperious  —  and  the 


1 88  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

mediaeval  scheme  commends  itself  as  the  logical 
ecclesiastical  expression  of  the  principles  contained 
within  that  definition  of  men  in  which  the  experience 
of  the  Mediterranean  world  summed  itself  up.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  to-day  is  the  rightful  expo- 
nent of  an  imperial  individualism  that  invests  its  gains 
wholly  in  the  next  life. 

It  is  no  accident  that  Hildebrand,  the  first  to  suc- 
cessfully assert  the  sovereignty  of  the  Pope,  should 
also  have  carried  through  the  demand  for  the  celi- 
bacy of  the  clergy.  The  two  things  go  together. 
The  papacy  wins  whatever  title  it  may  possess  to 
permanent,  spiritual  worth  by  its  fidelity  to  the  logic 
of  the  universal  individual.  Various  historical  causes 
contributed  to  its  use.  For  example :  the  existence 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  Constantine's  removal  of  the 
capital,  the  destruction  of  important  centres  of  ancient 
Christianity  by  Mohammedanism.  But  it  would  be 
a  great  error  to  suppose  that  these  elements  com- 
pose the  whole  cause.  Undoubtedly  without  them 
the  papacy  would  not  have  been.  Nevertheless  it  is 
a  greater  thing  than  they  by  themselves  can  account 
for.  It  is  the  thorough  working  out  of  a  certain 
view,  the  transcendent  view,  of  the  universe  —  with 
the  superb  moral  genius  of  the  Bible  for  its  inspira- 
tion. Hildebrand  then  was  not  only  strategic  but  con- 
sistent in  coupling  together  his  war  with  the  Empire 
and  his  war  with  the  married  clergy.  Without  the 
triumph  of  the  monastic  principle,  the  transcendent 
interpretation  of  the  universe  would  have  stood  on 
one  foot. 

While,  however,  monasticism  thus  invaded  and  con- 
quered the  Church,  there  was  something  in  the  make 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  189 

of  Occidental  monasticism  that  set  it  apart  from  Ori- 
ental monasticism.  The  latter  has  no  affinity  for 
history.  Schopenhauer  truly  represents  it,  when  he 
describes  the  will  in  the  world  and  in  man  as  the 
root  of  all  evil,  and  ascribes  to  the  contemplative  rea- 
son the  obligation  and  the  power  to  undo  the  work 
of  the  will.  This  is  consistent  quietism.  But 
Western  monasticism  had  a  different  strain  in  it. 
The  axes  of  the  monks,  who  made  so  many  broad 
clearings  in  the  forests  of  Europe,  ring  in  unison 
with  the  axe  of  the  American  pioneer.  The  monks 
in  Europe  tamed  Nature.  In  India  they  got  rid  of 
Nature  by  self-absorption.  Moreover  the  monks  of 
the  West  developed  a  magnificent  discipline.  Bene- 
dict made  the  Rule  a  system  of  ascetic  tactics.  The 
founders  of  the  later  orders  elaborated  his  rule,  until 
it  grew  to  be  as  complete  and  as  masterful  in  its  way 
as  the  tactics  of  the  Roman  Army.  The  monks  left 
society,  but  not  to  forget  it  or  be  forgotten  by  it. 
They  left  the  world  in  order  to  rule  the  world. 

The  genius  of  the  Western  Church  is  clearly  and 
broadly  prefigured  in  Augustine.  One  of -his  books, 
the  City  of  God  was  the  first  out-and-out  creation 
of  Christianity  in  literature.  Origen's  great  work 
on  Dogmatics  was  largely  Greek  in  the  make  of  its 
thought.  But  Augustine  gave  the  world  a  new  kind 
of  book.  The  striking  thing  about  it  is  that  its  mat- 
ter is  not  philosophy,  but  the  philosophy  of  history. 
The  Greek  view  of  the  universe  gave  small  space  to 
history.  Its  philosophy  began  with  crude  cosmology, 
and  slowly  rose  to  the  problem  of  unity  in  the  mani- 
fold. In  Socrates  thought,  abandoning  the  attempt 
to  find  the  key  to  unity  in  the  world  outside  con- 


190          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

sciousness,  entered  deep  into  consciousness  to  find  it. 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  standing  on  his  ground,  tried  to 
make  the  outer  and  inner  world  cohere  in  reason. 

But  all  the  while  philosophy  remained  in  essence 
cosmological.  The  central  question  stood  fast. 
The  changes  touched  mainly  the  material  handled. 
Whereas  in  the  earlier  period  the  material  lay  out- 
side, now  a  considerable  part  of  it  lay  inside  the 
reason.  Yet  the  pith  of  the  problem  continued  to 
be — How  find  a  middle  term  between  being  and 
becoming  ?  How  hold  to  the  reality  both  of  that 
which  never  changes  and  that  which  is  forever 
changing?  —  Along  this  road  the  inner  world  could 
not  get  to  its  full  rights.  Consciousness  had  no  right 
of  way ;  it  was  annexed  to  the  cosmos. 

After  Aristotle,  the  interests  of  philosophy  turned 
more  and  more  towards  the  practical.  Ethics  took 
the  sceptre.  But  the  decay  of  speculative  capacity, 
that  went  on  at  the  same  time,  put  it  out  of  the  ques- 
tion for  the  deepening  moral  feeling  of  Stoicism  to 
have  its  due  effect  in  any  fundamental  change  of 
view.  The  Stoic  doctrine  concerning  the  last,  the 
ultimate  things,  slipped  back  from  ethic  into  cosmol- 
ogy- 

The  religious  interest  attaching  to  Greek  philoso- 
phy centred  in  its  conception  of  pure  being.  This 
is  illustrated  by  Neoplatonism,  in  which  Greek  rea- 
son kindled  its  own  funeral  pyre  and  ascended  to 
heaven  on  the  wings  of  mysticism.  Greek  philoso- 
phy never  set  a  becoming  value  on  Greek  art.  To 
art  the  human  was  central.  The  divine  gave  up  a 
large  part  of  its  mystery  in  order  to  become  at  once 
intelligible  and  beautiful.  To  philosophy,  on  the 


vi  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  19 J 

contrary,  humanity  was  not  central.  As  Hegel  says, 
Greek  thought,  instead  of  being  too  anthropomorphic, 
was  not  anthropomorphic  enough.  Hence,  while 
Herodotus  and  Thucydides  wrote  classic  histories, 
history  as  such  had  little  to  say  in  the  philosopher's 
sum  of  wisdom.  The  reasoned  view  of  the  world 
lagged  behind  the  practical  standard  of  the  men  who 
by  their  sweat  and  blood  made  the  Greek  view  of 
things  a  possibility.  Even  to  Aristotle  history  meant 
little.  He  measured  it  with  the  drama,  to  its  sore 
hurt.  To  the  "  master  of  those  who  know  "  history 
was  not  much  above  a  patch  on  the  universe.  If  it 
was  not  an  episode  in  the  cosmic  drama,  it  was  a 
very  poor  poem  full  of  episodes. 

In  the  Bible  things  look  the  other  way.  History 
is  the  marrow  of  the  universe.  The  sum  of  things 
is  a  good  nine  parts  humanity  to  one  of  cosmology. 
The  story  of  man's  doings  on  the  earth  is  not  an 
episode,  but  the  whole  drama.  The  cosmos  is  the 
stage,  nothing  more.  The  highway  of  being  runs 
through  the  heart  of  man,  not  through  the  stars. 
The  hearth-fire  of  God's  world  is  not  the  sun,  but  the 
conscience. 

The  result  of  this  overpowering  emphasis  on  man's 
part  in  the  world  is  seen  in  the  very  build  of  the 
Bible.  No  other  sacred  book  has  anything  like  its 
unbroken  story  from  the  first  day  of  creation  down. 
The  critical  question  touching  the  value  of  that 
history  as  a  history  need  not  rise  here.  The  bare 
fact  that  it  was  in  this  road  and  no  other  that  the 
prophetical  mind  travelled  is  the  whole  point.  The 
contrast  with  the  Greek  philosophy  could  not  be 
broader. 


192          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Again,  no  other  religious  interpretation  of  life,  as 
antiquity  knew  it,  has  a  clear  plan  of  the  connection 
between  the  historical  present  and  the  consummation 
of  history.  But  the  men  of  the  Bible  build  their 
house  upon  this  connection.  Read  Amos  or  Isaiah, 
and  see  how  the  present  borrows  all  its  meaning  from 
its  relation  to  a  perfect  day  of  God  and  of  man  that 
is  to  dawn  upon  the  earth.  The  hinge  of  idealizing 
Greek  thought  is  the  contrast  between  two  worlds, 
both  present  and  both  persistent, — the  outer  world 
of  sense  and  the  inner  world  of  reason.  The  hinge 
of  prophetic  and  apostolic  thought  is  the  contrast 
between  the  tragedy  of  imperfection  called  the  his- 
torical present  and  the  splendor  of  perfection  called 
the  Day  of  the  Lord,  or  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ. 
The  uniqueness  of  the  Bible  is  the  result  of  the  fact 
that  the  men  of  the  Bible  have  no  eye  for  anything 
save  man  and  his  fortunes.  History  is  all  in  all. 

Not  without  cause,  then,  is  the  first  distinctly  crea- 
tive work  of  Christianity  in  literature  a  philosophy  of 
history.  The  occasion  of  Augustine's  book  was  the 
capture  of  Rome  by  the  Goths  in  the  year  410.  The 
people  of  the  Empire,  when  the  capital  fell,  thought 
that  the  solid  earth  beneath  their  feet  was  rocking. 
The  heathen  laid  the  blame  upon  the  Christians. 
They  said  that  the  Gods,  because  the  presence  o"f 
Christianity  in  the  Empire  was  hideous  in  their  eyes, 
had  permitted  this  dreadful  thing  to  happen.  In 
defence  of  Christianity  Augustine  wrote  the  City  of 
God.  He  undertook  to  show,  mainly  by  the  use  of 
Biblical  material,  that  a  plain  pathway  of  moral  pur- 
pose runs  from  the  beginning  of  history  to  its  end. 
His  attempt  proves  that  a  new  conception  has  come 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  193 

into  the  mind  of  Europe.    Tennyson's  "  far-off  divine 
event  "  is  in  view. 

What  we  nowadays  call  the  philosophy  of  history 
is  of  direct  Christian  descent.  When  the  eighteenth 
century  turned  theology  out  of  doors,  so  that  it  was 
no  longer  possible  to  answer  doubt  with  some  dogma 
that  drew  its  material  from  the  unseen  and  the 
beyond,  a  different  sort  of  theodicy  was  called  for, 

—  one  that  should  deal  more  with  the  visible,  the 
here  and  the  now.     The  answer  was  a  philosophy  of 
history,  whose  object  was  to  show  the  footsteps  of 
the    Eternal,   the    enduring    worth-while,    down   the 
ages.     The  main  cause  in  the  genesis  of  this  new 
study  —  I  do  not  say  the  whole  cause  —  was  Christi- 
anity.    The  mediaeval  house  having  fallen,  the  spirit- 
ual consciousness  had  to  build  a  new  home  for  itself. 
That  it  went  about  the  work  in  this  way  is  for  the 
most  part  due  to  the  Biblical  view  of  the  universe. 

The  philosophy  of  history,  unless  the  idea  of 
development  came  to  its  aid,  would  be  a  tale  told 
by  an  idiot.  The  vast  debt  which  that  great  con- 
cept owes  to  the  Bible  has  never  been  fairly  acknow- 
ledged. The  thought  of  progress  did  not  take  the 
field  as  a  principle  of  science.  History  and  sociology 
first  made  explicit  use  of  it.  The  eighteenth  century 

—  the  clue  to  so  much  that  is  vital  in  our  experience 

—  gave  birth  to  it.     And  the  history  of  the  concept, 
when  it  shall  have  been  soundly  written,  will  make 
plain  the  fact  that  the  root  of  the  thought  was  not 
in  that  century  a  scientific  view  of  the  world,  but  a 
moral  interpretation  of  history ;  and  that  this  inter- 
pretation resulted  from  the  long  pressure  on  con- 
sciousness of  the  Christian  view  of  things. 

o 


191-  GENESIo  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Augustine  wrote  another  book  which  goes  to  show 
that  a  new  element  had  entered  the  mind  of  the 
Occident.  It  is  the  Confessions — the  first  autobiog- 
raphy. Here  also  the  Christian  tendency  completes 
what  was  begun  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  The 
Socratic  "  Know  thyself,"  the  Pythagorean  Golden 
Sentences,  the  Stoic  rule  of  self-examination,  are  all 
part  of  "the  nobler  business  of  looking  into  our- 
selves," as  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  expressed  it.  But 
the  Christian  consciousness  throws  upon  it  an  empha- 
sis beyond  the  best  men  of  Greece.  Since  the  keep- 
ing of  man's  soul  is  the  work  of  God  Himself;  and 
since  the  issues  of  eternity  turn  on  the  state  of  the 
heart,  man's  inner  life  must  needs  become  the  focus 
of  study. 

At  the  same  time  the  inner  does  not  exclude  the 
outer.  The  life  of  the  individual  as  a  whole  is  in 
the  divine  plan.  Plotinus,  the  great  Neoplatonist, 
did  not  wish  to  be  questioned  concerning  his  ancestry; 
not  because  he  was  low-born,  for  we  have  no  evi- 
dence that  way,  but  for  the  same  reason  that  he 
blushed  to  find  himself  possessed  of  a  body.  Plu- 
tarch's man  went  off  the  stage  and  the  mystic  came 
on.  With  the  Christians,  also  Plutarch's  man  departs. 
In  his  place  came  a  man,  to  whom,  as  to  Plotinus, 
the  soul  is  the  main  interest;  but  who,  unlike  Ploti- 
nus, possessed  or  rather  was  possessed  by  a  concep- 
tion that  represented  the  Eternal  as  putting  His 
own  holy  will  into  history.  He  therefore  looked 
upon  his  whole  life,  outer  and  inner,  as  being  of 
interest  to  God,  and  as  being,  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  it,  part  of  the  story  of  a  divine  education. 
So  he  wrote  an  autobiography. 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  195 

The  appearance  of  the  autobiography  indicates 
the  presence  and  sovereignty  of  the  principle  of 
individuality.  Augustine  is  the  first  of  a  long  and 
growing  series.  The  members  of  it  differ  widely. 
The  Confessions,  Cellini,  Rousseau,  Stuart  Mill,  New- 
man, —  what  a  varied  company !  Yet  they  have 
a  common  root.  Christianity  conspired  with  what 
was  best  in  Greece  and  Rome — the  deepened  sense 
of  individuality  —  in  order  to  aid  in  developing  the 
native  genius  of  the  modern  peoples.  The  first 
autobiography  resulted  from  a  point  of  view  that 
combined  the  mystical  with  the  historical  and,  in  a 
measure,  gained  in  subjective  depth,  without  losing 
grip  on  objective  conditions. 

The  interest  in  autobiography  is  at  home  with  the 
interest  in  universal  history.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  have  grown  and  thriven  in  the  same  tract  of 
time,  the  same  field  of  space.  As  a  matter  of  logic, 
they  have  their  common  root  in  the  belief  that  the 
deepest  purpose  of  the  universe  runs  through  human- 
ity in  its  terrestrial  surroundings.  Rousseau,  in  the 
opening  words  of  his  Confessions,  declares  that  the 
Almighty,  after  making  him,  broke  the  mould. 
Cellini  is  an  almost  incredible  union  of  naive  Greek 
delight  in  his  own  voluptuous  passions  with  a  relig- 
ious idea  that  he  was  predestinated  by  God.  If  one 
could  only  get  a  Calvinist  and  a  Satyr  to  agree  to 
make  one  man,  that  man  would  be  Cellini. 

Evidently  the  principle  of  individuality  takes  itself 
with  profound  seriousness.  No  doctrine  of  illusion 
or  preexistence  weakens  its  tenacious  hold  on  the 
power  of  assessment.  But  this  is  equivalent  to  say- 
ing that  the  historical  process  as  a  whole  has  ethical 


196          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

insignificance,  is  worth-while ;  for  illusionism,  being 
sceptical  regarding  the  spiritual  reality,  the  worth- 
while of  the  visible  world,  hurls  the  same  destructive 
doubt  against  the  objective  footing  of  the  individual. 
Along  this  road  all  history  takes  to  the  water.  To 
gain  the  harbor  of  inner  peace,  the  outer  order  is 
thrown  overboard  in  order  to  lighten  the  ship.  But 
the  Confessions  of  Augustine  indicate  that  the  Greek 
sense  of  measure  and  beauty  and  the  Roman  sense  of 
law  are,  in  the  long  run,  to  be  upheld  and  braced  by 
Biblical  monotheism.  The  deepening  of  the  inner 
life  must,  in  the  upshot  of  things,  involve  the  sanctity 
of  history.  Although  the  soul,  in  the  interest  of 
clear  definition,  plays  absentee  for  a  while  from 
terrestrial  society,  yet  it  cannot  remain  an  absentee. 
The  true  principle  of  individuality  draws  after  it  a 
ceaseless  agitation  to  widen  the  area  over  which  the 
principle  applies.  And  such  agitation  goes  to  the 
training,  not  of  quietists  but  of  social  reformers. 

What  has  been  said  about  Augustine  prepares  us 
to  understand  why  with  him  the  doctrine  of  the  will 
became  so  important.  Through  him  psychology  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  philosophy  came  near 
to  attaining,  if  it  did  not  actually  attain,  the  primacy. 
He  is  consequently  of  fundamental  significance  in 
the  intellectual  succession  from  Socrates  to  Kant 
through  Descartes.  And  in  his  psychology  the  will 
became  central.  In  Socrates  thought  and  will  ran 
together.  Aristotle  cleared  ground  for  the  will,  and 
in  so  doing  brought  philosophy  nearer  to  statesman- 
ship. Even  in  him  however  the  will  suffered  ship- 
wreck through  his  conception  of  God.  Now  the 
will  stands  for  the  outgoing  and  creative  function, 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  197 

while  reason  stands  for  the  contemplative.  Reason 
lives  in  order  to  make  its  outlook  ever  wider  and 
wider  until,  if  it  may  be,  the  vision  is  as  broad  as 
being.  The  will  lives  in  order  to  bring  into  being 
what  is  not.  Aristotle,  by  conceiving  God  as  infinite 
leisure  to  think  pure  thought,  fails  to  give  permanent 
registry  to  a  great  body  of  forces  that  go  to  the 
making  and  remaking  of  States,  and  to  the  conquest 
of  the  earth.  The  splendid  enthusiasm  for  reason, 
the  impassioned  desire  to  know  for  the  sake  of 
knowledge,  found  noble  and  clear  expression  in  him. 
But  the  doctrine  of  the  will  must  go  far  deeper  than 
he  carried  it,  if  a  true  Democracy  is  to  be  born. 

The  primacy  of  the  will  in  Augustine's  psychology, 
along  with  the  place  of  psychology  in  the  foreground 
of  philosophy,  is  a  matter  of  great  weight.  Whether 
we  say,  looking  backward  from  him,  that  the  will  of 
the  Empire  spoke  through  him ;  or  looking  forward, 
that  he  forebodes  the  will  of  the  imperial  Church,  — 
the  import  of  it  for  the  history  of  the  social  idea  can- 
not be  made  light  of. 

When  psychology  assumes  the  primacy  in  philoso- 
phy, and  when  the  will  acquires  the  primacy  in  psy- 
chology, a  most  significant  step  has  been  taken. 
Aristotle's  doctrine  concerning  the  will  went  hand  in 
hand  with  his  theory  of  evolution;  and  the  two  to- 
gether marked  out  a  road  from  the  static  view  of  the 
universe  upon  which  Greek  thought  agreed,  to  a  dy- 
namic view.  The  fundamental  difference  between 
these  views  is  that  the  latter  clears  a  space  for  those 
forces  of  the  universe  which  have  not  yet  been 
mobilized.  A  man  cannot  be  an  earnest  evolutionist 
unless  he  assesses  at  a  high  figure  the  possibility 


198  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

of  new  things  in  the  world.  Otherwise  there  is  no 
bridge  between  his  thought  of  law  and  his  thought 
of  change.  And  then  his  idea  of  law  recognizes  only 
the  unchangeable  as  constitutional  in  the  universe; 
whether  it  be  the  unchangeableness  of  the  idea, —  if 
he  be  an  idealist;  or  the  unchangeableness  of  the 
atom, —  if  he  be  a  materialist.  Evolution  has  no 
place  in  the  heart  of  things.  What  seems  to  be  evo- 
lution is  in  truth  a  mere  flirtation  carried  on  between 
the  Cosmos  and  the  notion  of  change,  with  no  real 
purpose  of  marriage,  so  far  as  the  former  is  con- 
cerned. The  universe  is  therefore  insincere,  and  the 
crust  of  reality  breaks  beneath  the  foot  of  the  realist. 
The  sole  alternative  is  that  he  shall  take  wing  into  a 
religious  idealism,  a  mysticism,  which  reduces  Nature 
and  History  to  symbolical  terms,  and  thus  denies  the 
spiritual  reality  of  change. 

The  cause  of  a  true  Democracy  stands  or  falls  with 
the  dynamic  view  of  the  universe.  Change  must  be 
sanctified.  Law  must  seek  a  marriage  with  evolu- 
tion. And  if  this  is  to  come  to  pass,  will  must 
become  primary  in  metaphysic.  Hence  the  signifi- 
cance of  Augustine.  The  cause  of  his  tendency  is 
complex.  For  one  thing,  Rome  spoke  through  him. 
A  true  State,  that  is,  a  body  politic  which,  on  one 
hand,  takes  the  individual,  not  any  class  of  men,  for 
its  unit  and,  on  the  other  hand,  is  in  some  sense  an 
organism  of  justice,  seeking  to  give  to  each  indi- 
vidual whatever  belongs  to  him,  must  recognize,  im- 
plicitly or  explicitly,  the  possibility  of  progress.  It 
may  be  that  the  forms  of  thought,  dominant  at  the 
time,  do  not  permit  an  explicit  recognition.  None 
the  less,  some  roundabout  way  of  getting  to  the  goal, 


VI  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  199 

which  is  the  idea  of  progress,  is  certain  to  be  discov- 
ered. For  another  thing,  the  Catholic  Church  spoke 
through  Augustine.  The  victory  of  the  Church  over 
the  Empire,  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  political  au- 
thority to  Constantinople,  the  organization  of  the 
episcopate,  with  the  existence  of  an  episcopal  centre 
like  Rome,  were  all  prophetic  of  the  marvellous  im- 
perial society,  half  spiritual  and  half  secular,  which 
was  to  master  the  reason  and  imagination  and  con- 
science of  the  Occident.  A  great  Church,  like  a 
great  State,  must  come  at  the  thought  of  progress, 
although  it  be  through  a  night-march  by  which  it 
turns  its  own  flank.  Its  favorite  dogma  may  be  im- 
mutability. Yet  it  will  never  sacrifice  its  existence 
to  consistency.  A  vast  institution  is  like  a  vast  capi- 
tal permanently  invested.  It  draws  other  capital 
after  it.  Its  dogmas  are  not  speculative  theorems, 
but  partake  largely  of  the  nature  of  laws,  and  there- 
fore yield  to  the  necessity  of  adaptation.  Finally, 
the  Bible  moulded  the  mind  of  Augustine  more  or 
less  after  its  own  mind,  and  the  pith  of  its  own  mind 
is  the  conception  of  a  sovereign  and  good  will  press- 
ing on  from  creation  to  the  consummation  of  history. 
Taking  these  three  things  together,  we  probably  have 
the  cause  for  Augustine's,  main  tendency  in  meta- 
physic,  and  the  explanation  of  his  importance  in  the 
history  of  the  change  from  the  static  to  the  dynamic 
view  of  the  universe. 

From  the  lack  of  this  conception  of  will  came  the 
emanational  and  dualistic  theories  of  philosophy. 
"  Pagan  Antiquity,"  says  Baur,  "  never  got  beyond 
the  antithesis  between  spirit  and  matter,  was  unable 
to  conceive  a  world  produced  by  the  full  creative 


200  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

activity  of  a  purely  personal  will." 79  "  In  contrast 
with  this,"  says  Windelband,  "the  peculiarity  of 
Christian  philosophy  consisted  essentially  herein,  that 
in  its  apprehension  of  the  relation  between  God  and 
the  world,  it  sought  to  employ  throughout  the  ethical 
point  of  view  of  free  creative  action."  ^ 

It  may  seem  like  fishing  with  a  drag-net  when  the 
Apostles'  Creed  and  the  Nicene  Creed  are  brought 
in  as  contributors  to  the  cause  of  true  Democracy 
and  as  essential  chapters  in  the  history  of  the  social 
question.  Yet  even  the  most  consistent  agnostic,  in 
these  days  of  historical  study,  does  not  hesitate  to 
concede  great  value  to  dogma  in  the  past.  We  may 
differ  very  widely  in  our  valuation  of  dogma  as  an 
element  in  present  experience,  while  heartily  agree- 
ing about  its  influence  on  the  formation  of  social 
tissue.  Now  the  first  article  of  the  creeds  is  belief 
in  the  Almighty  Creatorhood  of  God.  The  creation 
of  matter  itself  is  one  of  the  main  positions  taken  up 
by  Christian  Apologetics  against  Greek  philosophy. 
It  is  here  that  the  dogma  of  creation  out  of  nothing 
finds  its  purpose.  Metaphysically  meaningless,  it  is 
full  of  ethical  meaning.  The  Greek  view  of  an  un- 
created matter  is  part  and  parcel  of  dualism.  The 
dualism  may  be  ever  so  refined,  still  it  cannot  be 
wholly  rubbed  out.  And  dualism  in  any  form  means 
that  there's  something  in  the  universe  that  success- 
fully resists  the  rational  and  ethical  process. 

The  belief  in  creation  out  of  nothing  signifies  that 
the  Christian  consciousness  will  not  admit  that  the  con- 
stitution of  the  universe  contains  any  elements  that  can 
permanently  withstand  the  triumph  of  the  good.  So 
it  either  involves  or  results  from  the  conviction  that 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  2OI 

all  being  is  moralizable.  Suppose  that  the  Christian 
consciousness  had  created  God  in  its  own  image,  not 
contrariwise.  The  sociologic  value  of  the  belief  in  ab- 
solute creation  would  be  greater  rather  than  less.  It 
would  be  a  deeper  symptom  in  the  history  of  the  race. 
It  would  stand  for  a  mortal  antipathy  to  fatalism  and 
consequently  to  every  form  of  social  and  personal 
sloth,  and,  in  the  outcome,  for  faith  in  a  maximum  of 
redeeming  and  reforming  energy. 

Hence  the  dogma  betokened  the  clean  break  of 
Christianity  with  heathenism.  The  theory  of  ema- 
nation was  utterly  abandoned.  The  step  to  evolution 
was  made  inevitable.81  Emanation  means  that  at 
every  remove  from  the  first  divine  step  in  Nature  and 
history  things  grow  feebler  and  less  capacious  of  good. 
The  flat  dogmatic  denial  of  emanation  leads  sooner  or 
later  to  the  conviction  that  the  remove  is  in  truth  a 
growth,  an  accession  of  new  resources,  an  increase  in 
the  depth  and  reach  of  the  phenomenon.  Therefore 
it  was  in  principle  the  expulsion  of  pessimism,  a  buoy- 
ant trust  that  all  good  things  are  within  the  reach  of 
our  common  humanity. 

The  divine  freedom  draws  human  freedom  after 
it.  The  emphasis  on  freedom  is  a  dominant  note  in 
the  teaching  of  the  Fathers.  Even  Augustinianism, 
which  seems  to  totally  exclude  it,  does  not  succeed  in 
doing  so  —  nay ;  does  not  really  aim  at  such  a  result. 
The  object  is  to  cut  the  ground  from  under  human 
pride.  Augustine  reached  his  end  by  the  doctrine  of 
sovereign  grace.  Freedom  as  a  natural  attribute  of 
man  is  certainly  destroyed.  Not  so  with  freedom  as 
a  divine  gift  communicated  without  man's  desert. 
God  is  absolutely  free.  He  chooses  men  to  be  His 


202  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

friends.  They  become  His  agents  in  the  world.  They 
disclaim  all  merit  in  the  matter.  They  therefore  have 
not  freedom  in  the  formal  sense.  But  freedom  in  the 
material  sense  they  possess  in  the  highest  degree. 
Because  material  freedom  means  simply  the  power 
to  become  something  different  from  what  one  now  is. 
And  the  man  who  is  chosen  by  God  to  be  His  friend 
is  thereby  endowed  with  the  power  to  be  made  over 
from  head  to  foot. 

God's  choice  pays  no  respect  to  persons.  It  might 
be  successfully  argued  that  Augustine  does  not  free 
the  character  of  God  from  arbitrariness,  but  there 
would  be  no  shadow  of  reason  for  saying  that  he 
makes  God  out  to  be  a  Being  who  takes  account  of 
human  prerogatives.  On  the  contrary  sovereign  grace 
lifts  the  poor  out  of  the  mire  and  makes  him  a  prince 
in  the  realm  of  the  spirit.  The  human  side  then  of 
Augustinian  theory  is  that  human  nature,  if  God 
touches  it,  becomes  absolutely  free  as  regards  the 
world  and  the  whole  terrestrial  environment.  In  re- 
lation to  God  the  man  who  is  redeemed  disuses  the 
word  "  freedom."  In  relation  to  Nature  and  the  con- 
stitution of  society  he  is  absolutely  free. 

Anyway,  barring  Augustinianism,  the  Fathers  uni- 
formly emphasized  freedom  in  the  material  sense, 
freedom  as  the  power  to  become  something  infinitely 
superior  to  what  one  actually  is.  Of  course  it  was 
not  political  freedom  that  was  in  debate.  It  must 
however  be  carefully  observed  that  the  freedom 
affirmed  is  not  shallower  than  political  freedom,  but 
deeper.  It  is  declared  —  and  the  full  authority  of 
the  Bible  and  Church  is  used  to  sustain  the  declara- 
tion —  that  the  lowest  human  being  contains  the  pos- 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  203 

sibility  of  a  change  that  shall  make  him,  in  the  end 
of  things,  peer  to  the  angels.  This  sort  of  freedom 
really  goes  deeper  than  civic  freedom  and  assesses  the 
capacity  of  the  average  man  at  a  far  higher  figure. 
Some  day  it  is  bound  to  tell  upon  theories  concerning 
the  State. 

The  Christians  were  accused  of  violating  the  most 
sacred  traditions  in  giving  up  the  established  customs 
of  the  heathen  world.  The  defenders  of  Christianity 
had  to  assert  the  right  to  change.  The  heathen  ac- 
cused them  of  flying  in  the  face  of  Nature.  Aristotle 
had  said :  "  Slaves  are  incapable  of  happiness  or  free- 
will."82 Much  of  Aristotle's  narrowness  was  out- 
grown in  the  centuries  after  him.  Yet  to  the  very 
last  the  opponents  of  Christianity  threw  it  in  the  teeth 
of  Christians  that  they  were  attempting  the  impossible 
when  they  set  out  to  find  the  full  likeness  of  God  in 
the  poorest  slave. 

Even  Neoplatonism,  with  its  spiritual  intensity, 
made  shipwreck  here.  To  them  the  "  soul "  or 
"  spirit "  or  "  reason "  is  not  a  task  of  self-realiza- 
tion laid  upon  all  men,  but  a  special  endowment,  a 
sort  of  noble  fate  bestowed  upon  a  few.83  Thus 
humanity  is  stratified.  In  the  Christian  view,  on  the 
contrary,  the  glowing  thought  of  the  divine  redeem- 
ing will  fuses  humanity  into  one  mass,  of  common 
grain  from  top  to  bottom.  The  "soul"  was  not  so 
much  a  gift  as  a  task,  a  task  of  self-realization  laid 
upon  all  men  and  within  reach  of  all.  So  the  Chris- 
tian belief  in  freedom,  as  over  against  the  heathen  con- 
ception of  human  nature  as  fixed  on  certain  lines  and 
at  certain  levels,  meant  that  humanity  was  to  be  con- 
ceived as  indefinitely  elastic,  as  having  unlimited  ca- 


204  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

pacity  for  change  upward.  The  "  soul "  in  every  man 
says  to  him  :  "  Thou  oughtest,  therefore  thou  canst." 

I  said  that  Occidental  monasticism  differed  from 
Oriental  monasticism  in  that  it  had  a  capacity  for 
history.  I  have  tried  to  show  that  this  is  wrapped 
up  in  the  Biblical  idea  that  the  deepest  thing  in  God 
is  a  forthputting  will.  There's  one  outstanding  fact 
in  the  constitution  of  European  monasticism  which,  if 
not  the  proof  of  this,  is  at  least  its  symbol, —  the  adop- 
tion of  labor  as  essential  to  perfection.  The  labor  re- 
quired was  almost  wholly  hand-labor,  either  field-work 
or  copying.  The  noblest  philosophers  of  Greece  had 
failed  to  appreciate  the  moral  significance  of  hand- 
labor.  Aristotle,  who  by  reason  of  his  strong  ten- 
dency towards  realism  should  have  been  led  to 
understand  this  matter,  is  a  striking  illustration. 
Hand-labor  had  no  ethical  worth  in  his  eyes.  Even 
to  Plutarch,  kindly  by  nature  and  profiting  by  the 
wisdom  of  later  centuries,  such  work  had  little  spir- 
itual meaning.  He  says  :  "  One  of  the  greatest  and 
highest  blessings  Lycurgus  procured  his  people  was 
the  abundance  of  leisure,  which  proceeded  from  his 
forbidding  to  them  the  exercise  of  any  mean  and  me- 
chanical trade.  .  .  .  The  Helots  tilled  their  ground 
for  them.  .  .  .  To  this  purpose  there  goes  a  story  of 
a  Lacedaemonian  who,  happening  to  be  at  Athens 
when  the  courts  were  sitting,  was  told  of  a  citizen  that 
had  been  fined  for  living  an  idle  life,  and  was  being 
escorted  home  in  much  distress  of  mind  by  his  con- 
doling friends ;  the  Lacedaemonian  was  much  surprised 
at  it,  and  desired  his  friend  to  show  him  the  man  who 
was  condemned  for  living  like  a  freeman."  ^ 

Monasticism  adopted  labor  as  essential  to  self-real- 


vi  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          205 

ization.  Augustus  wrote  a  treatise  against  the  purely 
contemplative  life,  taking  the  ground  that  without 
hand-labor  self-masterhood  was  not  possible.  The 
monasteries  of  Egypt  made  it  a  rule  to  receive  none 
who  were  not  willing  to  work.  Benedict,  following 
their  lead,  made  labor  fundamental  in  the  pursuit  of 
holiness.  His  rule  required  eight  hours'  out-door 
work  in  summer,  six  in  winter.  Origen,  commenting 
on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  says  :  "  The  command  to  pray 
without  ceasing  can  only  be  obeyed  by  making  our 
whole  life  of  duty  an  unbroken  prayer."  An  abbot, 
in  later  days,  commended  copying  as  most  helpful 
to  salvation  :  "  You  pierce  the  devil  with  as  many 
blows  as  you  trace  letters  on  the  paper."  Laborare 
(meaning  largely  hand-labor)  est  orare. 

In  this  ascription  of  ideal  worth  to  hand-labor 
the  Neopythagoreans  and  the  Stoics  led  the  way. 
Marcus  Aurelius  expresses  gratitude :  Because  I 
"learned  from  my  governor  to  work  with  my  hands." 
Philo,  the  Jew,  went  further  than  the  idealists  of  the 
Empire.  "  God  exhibited  labor  to  men  as  the  prin- 
ciple of  every  good  and  every  virtue ; "  and,  again, 
"  All  good  things  are  born  from  and  grow  out  of  labor 
as  from  a  single  root."85  The  Church  took  these 
thoughts  and  drove  them  in  with  a  dogma.  Epipha- 
nius,  one  of  those  men  who  can  never  entertain  any 
opinion  without  making  it  part  of  a  creed,  said  : 
"There's  no  servant  of  God  who  does  not,  for  obtain- 
ing salvation,  work  with  his  hands."  8G  It  is  true  of 
course  that,  as  Jerome  says,  the  rule  of  labor  was  "not 
so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  body  as  to  save  the  soul."87 
Not  the  conquest  of  the  earth,  but  the  conquest  of 
conscience  is  the  aim.  But  that  is  not  to  the  point. 


206          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

The  subject  is  the  idealization  of  hand-labor.  For  a 
thousand  years  the  spiritual  aristocracy  of  Europe 
preached  and  practised  the  principle  that  without 
such  work  a  man  could  not  reach  the  highest  virtue. 
No  pleader  for  Christianity  would  be  so  foolhardy  as 
to  maintain  that  the  modern  estimate  of  free  labor 
derives  from  monasticism  any  appreciable  part  of  its 
sap.  It  is  the  product  of  an  industrial  age.  Still, 
the  monastic  estimate  of  labor  does  symbolize,  on  the 
one  side,  Christianity's  appreciation  of  the  practical, 
its  antipathy  to  the  aristocracy  of  intellectualism ; 
and,  on  the  other,  the  fact  that  on  the  Christian  plan 
of  things,  the  doctrine  of  the  will  is  primary.  The 
conquest  of  the  conscience  is  the  direct  object.  But 
in  the  long  run  that  is  impossible  without  the  con- 
quest of  the  earth. 

The  monastic  idealization  of  labor  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  monastic  theory  about  the  minimum  of 
wants,  and  this,  again,  with  the  theory  about  property. 
We  have  seen  that  the  minimum  of  wants  was  a 
maxim  in  the  ethics  of  antiquity.  Hesiod  to  this 
point :  "  Fools  who  do  not  know  how  much  more  the 
half  is  than  the  whole."  And  the  Cynics:  "Virtue 
is  freedom  from  wants,"  —  as  if  everything  above  the 
earth  were  artificial.  But  the  men  of  the  Empire 
formulated  this,  for  the  most  part,  from  the  individ- 
ual's point  of  view.  The  man  who  seeks  distinction 
in  virtue  must  have  few  wants,  that  he  may  be  de- 
livered from  the  necessity  of  giving  hostages  to 
fortune,  that  he  may  be  insured  against  disaster  to 
his  life-plan,  and  thus  become  and  remain  his  own 
master.  But  the  Fathers  and  the  monks,  while 
preaching  the  higher  Cynicism  and  Stoicism,  did  not 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  2O/ 

confine  themselves  to  the  individual's  point  of  view. 
They  rather  grounded  the  minimum  of  wants  on  the 
individual's  duty  to  the  whole  race.  Thus  Clement 
of  Alexandria :  "All  things  are  common."  Luxury 
"  is  not  human,  nor  is  it  in  keeping  with  the  idea  of 
common  possession."  ^ 

The  doctrine  of  the  minimum  does  not  get  its  full 
emphasis  until  it  is  associated  with  the  denunciation 
of  covetousness.  The  Fathers  and  the  monks  work 
in  the  Biblical  vein.  Covetousness  is  a  deadly  sin. 
In  the  first  place  it  violates  the  divine  sovereignty, 
making  man  a  little  god.  In  the  second  place,  it 
sins  against  the  unity  of  humanity  and  dissolves 
society.  The  social  power  of  the  belief  in  aggressive 
monotheism  plainly  shows  itself  at  this  point.  Com- 
pare the  Church's  teaching  about  covetousness  with 
contemporary  heathen  teaching.  A  Stoic  —  Seneca, 
for  example  —  thought  of  himself  as  in  some  ways 
the  mate  and  peer  of  the  gods.  To  the  Christian, 
on  the  contrary,  the  divine  monarchy  was  absolute. 
Hence  a  Seneca  —  while  in  practice  he  was  less  an 
individual  than  the  monk,  because  he  held  to  the 
position  in  society  which  the  monk  abandoned  —  in 
the  matter  of  theory  was  more  of  an  individualist. 
The  monk's  mind,  held  fast  in  the  grip  of  the  divine 
monarchy,  could  not  but  see  the  individual  in  the 
light  of  the  whole. 

Besides,  the  monks  did  not  long  live  as  hermits. 
They  soon  created  a  new  kind  of  society.  And  within 
the  limits  of  that  society  they  gave  free  rein  to  theory. 
Hence  their  practice,  although  it  covered  a  limited 
field,  was  in  its  make  far  more  socialistic  than  the 
Stoic  practice.  The  individual  is  the  unit,  so  long  as 


2O8  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  eye  is  towards  the  outer  world,  and  so  long  as 
the  question  is  —  "  What  shall  I  do  to  escape  from 
Vanity  Fair?"  But  as  soon  as  the  monk  has  sure 
footing  on  a  fixed  hope  regarding  the  other  world 
and  from  that  high  ground  looks  down  upon  this 
world,  the  individual  ceases  in  large  measure  to  be 
the  unit  and  the  existing  social  structure  is  judged 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  race.  The  minimum  of 
wants  is  now  seen  to  be  an  absolute  duty  because 
anything  above  the  minimum  trespasses  on  the  rights 
of  mankind. 

So  we  step  naturally  into  the  theory  of  property 
which  the  Fathers  formulated  and  the  monks  car- 
ried into  practice.  Anastasius  of  Sinai,  discussing 
Christ's  words  about  the  mammon  of  unrighteous- 
ness, says  they  do  not  refer,  as  some  think,  to  prop- 
erty gotten  by  wrong  means,  but  to  everything  in 
excess  of  absolute  necessities.89  Jerome  writes :  "The 
one  can  only  win  what  the  other  loses;  thence  the 
saying,  'Every  rich  man  is  an  unrighteous  person 
or  the  son  of  one.'"90  Chrysostom  cries  out  to  a 
rich  lady :  "  Of  how  many  poor,  O  woman,  does 
thine  arm  bear  the  robbery?"91 

To  possess  property  was  felt  to  be  a  dishonor. 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  on  his  death-bed,  forbade  his 
friends  buying  a  grave  for  him,  requiring  that  his 
body  be  buried  in  common  ground.  The  principle 
of  property  in  common  ought  to  rule  in  one  place 
anyway,  —  the  place  where  the  bodies  of  men  return 
to  the  dust  whence  they  were  taken.  Ephraem 
of  Syria,  just  before  he  died,  gave  away  the  only 
bit  of  property  he  possessed,  —  his  old  man's  staff. 
On  the  threshold  of  the  perfect  life,  he  joyously 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  2CX) 

washed  his  hands  of  the  last  stain  made  by  private 
property.  The  men  who  did  such  things  believed 
that  the  absolute  minimum  of  wants  was  the  only 
cure  for  covetousness.  "  You  must  avoid  the  sin 
of  covetousness,"  says  Jerome,  "and  this  not  merely 
by  refusing  to  seize  upon  what  belongs  to  others, 
for  that  is  punished  by  the  laws  of  the  State, 
but  also  by  not  keeping  your  own  property,  which 
has  now  become  no  longer  yours."92  The  vow  of 
poverty  is  the  only  cement  that  can  hold  a  truly 
ethical  society  together.93 

The  monastic  life  was  to  realize  true  social  unity. 
Salvian  says  that  the  only  justification  for  a  priest's 
having  property  is  in  the  fact  that  through  his  hands 
the  money  of  the  rich  passes  into  the  hands  of  the 
poor.  He  is  God's  middleman.  By  his  means,  the 
sin  against  Nature  committed  by  the  rich  is  in  some 
measure  corrected.  Anything  above  the  minimum 
of  wants  is  a  robbery.  Through  the  Church,  the 
partial  restoration  is  brought  about.  Now  if  this 
held  true  of  the  whole  priesthood,  how  much  more 
of  the  monks,  whose  reason  for  existence  was  to 
carry  the  puritanism  of  the  time  to  the  length  of 
its  principle. 

The  most  explicit  communism  is  taught  by  the 
Fathers  and  practised  by  the  monks.  Adam,  it  was 
said,  had  no  property  of  his  own ;  for,  while  the 
whole  earth  was  for  his  use,  no  part  of  it  belonged 
to  him.  "Thou  shalt  communicate  in  all  things  to 
thy  brother,  and  shalt  not  say  thy  goods  are  thine 
own;  for  the  common  participation  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life  is  appointed  to  all  men  by  God.'.'94 
According  to  Augustine,  property  originated  in  the 


210  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Fall  and  in  fratricide.  Cain  and  Romulus,  founders 
of  the  terrestrial  city,  are  types  of  the  property- 
getter.  According  to  Rousseau :  "  The  first  man 
who,  having  fenced  off  a  piece  of  ground,  could 
think  of  saying,  This  is  mine,  and  found  people 
simple  enough  to  believe  him,  was  the  real  founder 
of  civil  society.  How  many  crimes,  wars,  murders, 
miseries,  and  horrors  would  not  have  been  spared 
to  the  human  race  by  one  who,  plucking  up  the 
stakes,  or  filling  in  the  trench,  should  have  called 
out  to  his  fellows :  Beware  of  listening  to  this  im- 
postor ;  you  are  undone  if  you  forget  that  the  earth 
belongs  to  no  one  and  that  its  fruits  are  for  all."  95 
The  thought  is  identical,  although  Augustine's  words 
are  more  severe,  on  the  whole,  than  Rousseau's. 

Again,  Augustine  writes  in  more  sober  fashion  : 
"  God  has  made  the  rich  and  the  poor  of  the  same 
clay,  and  one  earth  bears  them  both.  .  .  .  'Tis 
through  Emperors  and  Kings  of  the  world  that  God 
gives  the  human  law  of  the  human  race.  Take 
away  the  law  of  the  Emperors,  and  who  will  dare 
to  say,  '  This  villa  is  mine  '  ?  "  %  Nilus  to  nearly  the 
same  point.  Speaking  about  the  rulers  who  sought 
to  check  the  exodus  from  the  city  of  men  to  the  city 
of  monks  in  the  wilderness,  he  declares  that  their 
authority  is  not  by  Nature  but  by  mere  custom ; 
"  the  only  life  that  is  after  the  mind  of  the  Creator 
is  the  life  without  property,  having  all  things  in 
common."97  No  man  can  be  truly  individual  and 
have  anything  beyond  his  clothes  and  daily  bread. 
Without  poverty,  no  perfection.  Virtue  of  a  high 
order  is  irreconcilable  with  wealth.  If  a  man  would 
be  more  careful  of  his  soul  than  of  his  property,  he 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  211 

must  become  a  monk.98  The  monastic  writings  of 
the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries  all  agree  in  this 
matter.  The  monks  looked  through  existing  society 
and  behind  it  saw  an  ideal  host  of  ideal  individuals, 
each  one  owning  nothing  save  himself. 

Property  then  has  no  root  in  the  nature  of  things. 
Its  only  title  is  positive  law ;  it  is  the  creation  of  the 
State.  Many  an  economist  of  our  day  might  repeat 
that  last  proposition,  —  even  as  Cicero  anticipated 
it,  —  since  the  growth  of  private  property  is  bound 
up  in  history  with  the  formation  and  development 
of  government.  But  his  assertion  would  probably 
resemble  Augustine's  only  in  form,  differing  radi- 
cally in  substance,  for  the  reason  that  his  economics 
are  not  touched  by  the  dogmas  about  sin  and  the 
Fall.  For  him,  the  growth  of  the  State  is  as  truly 
a  process  of  Nature  as  the  movement  of  the  tides. 
And  so,  to  say  that  the  right  private  property  de- 
pends upon  the  State  would  not  necessarily  impair 
the  ideal  rightfulness  of  private  property.  To  Au- 
gustine's mind,  on  the  contrary,  the  State  was  neces- 
sitated by  sin.  On  account  of  sin  in  the  world",  God 
allowed  it.  Inasmuch  as  sin  cannot  be  gotten  rid 
of  until  the  Judgment  Day,  the  State  must  continue. 
Consequently,  private  property  must  continue.  But 
it  has  no  ground  whatever  in  equity  as  distinguished 
from  positive  law.  In  true  humanity  it  lacks  all 
root.  To  sin  it  owes  its  origin  and  to  sin  its  con- 
tinuance. Its  title-deeds  cannot  pass  muster  in  the 
supreme  court  of  morality,  —  the  monastery. 

The  logic  of  this  conception  came  boldly  into  the 
light  when  the  problem  of  reconciling  puritanism 
with  the  housekeeping  necessities  of  a  religious  es- 


212  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

tablishment  did  not  confront  the  mind.  The  sects 
that  opposed  the  Catholic  Church  could  be  more 
consistent.  Logic  is  a  luxury  that  few  practical  men 
can  afford.  Augustine  was  illogical  because,  being 
bishop  in  a  State  church,  he  had  to  be  a  statesman  as 
well  as  a  Puritan.  The  Manichaeans,  however,  were 
not  wrestling  with  that  double  question.  Hence,  strik- 
ing straight  out  into  a  broad  inference  from  the  above 
reasoning,  they  ruled  that  "  no  baptised  person  should 
possess  property."99  Pelagius,  also,  and  his  followers 
combated  private  property.100  They  saw  the  prob- 
lem from  one  side.  They  achieved  the  glory  of  con- 
sistency at  the  cost  of  practicalness.  For  their  logic, 
if  pressed  home  under  the  conditions  of  those  days, 
would  have  turned  Christianity  into  a  vast  monastery. 
The  dual  work  of  the  Mediaeval  Church  would  have 
become  impossible.  She  was  to  give  free  career  to 
the  splendid  passion  of  the  elect  for  perfection  and 
at  the  same  time  maintain  a  concordat  with  the 
State. 

Augustine's  theory  became  the  explicit  programme 
of  Occidental  Christianity.  Two  worlds  lie  beside 
each  other.  Two  classes  of  people  —  those  who  are 
fully  in  earnest  with  virtue,  and  those  who  are  only 
earnest  in  part — compose  two  Churches, — the  Church 
of  the  saints,  and  the  Church  of  the  average  Chris- 
tians and  worldlings.  There  are  two  levels  of  duty. 
All  who  have  a  passion  for  goodness  find  no  stopping- 
place  short  of  the  monastic  "counsels  of  perfection." 
On  this  level  there  is  no  private  property.  No  saint 
can  own  his  own  farm.  In  the  Pseudo-Isidore  it  is 
written :  "  We  know  that  you  are  not  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  hitherto  the  principle  of  living  with  all 


GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 


213 


things  in  common  has  been  in  vigorous  operation 
among  good  Christians,  and  is  still  so  by  the  grace 
of  God ;  and  most  of  all  among  those  who  have  been 
chosen  to  the  lot  of  the  Lord,  that  is  to  say,  the 
clergy."  101  But  all  men  cannot  be  clergy  and  monks. 
All  men  cannot  be  saints.  There's  a  half-way  house 
of  goodness,  wherein  the  bulk  of  Christians  live  ;  and 
any  one  of  them  may  own  his  own  farm,  if  strength 
of  arm  and  force  of  mind  enable  him.  And  so,  by 
dint  of  having  two  Churches,  —  which  yet  are  made 
one  through  the  inner  Church's  domination  over  the 
outer,  —  the  problem  which  the  Manichaean  did  not 
face  is,  for  the  time,  successfully  met.  Rigorism  is 
specialized  and  localized.  The  Church  keeps  house 
with  the  State,  yet  satisfies  the  perfectionist. 

This  disposition  of  things  answered  the  purpose 
for  a  thousand  years.  Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
some  day  the  arrangement  must  break  down,  and  the 
thought  that  is  taken  with  all  seriousness  in  the 
monastery  seek  its  fortune  outside.  Such  economic 
teaching  as  the  monastic  type  of  Christianity  incor- 
porated in  both  theory  and  practice  cannot  but  be- 
come, sooner  or  later,  a  threat  to  the  world's  vested 
interest.  Take  Ambrose  as  an  example.  He  affirms 
that  the  Christian  idea  of  justice  shuts  out  the  thought 
of  private  property.  It  is  not  consonant  with  abso- 
lute justice,  as  Scripture  has  revealed  it,  "that  one 
should  treat  common,  that  is  public,  property  as 
private.  This  is  not  even  in  accord  with  Nature,  for 
Nature  has  poured  forth  all  things  for  all  men  for 
common  use.  God  has  ordered  all  things  to  be  pro- 
duced, so  that  there  should  be  food  in  common  to 
all,  and  that  the  earth  should  be  a  common  posses- 


214  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

sion  for  all.  Nature,  therefore,  has  produced  a  com- 
mon right  for  all,  but  greed  has  made  it  a  right  for 
a  few."102  Using  the  very  terms  of  Roman  law,  he 
declared  that  private  property  rests  upon  usurpation. 
Arming  himself  with  an  etymology  used  by  Lac- 
tantius  and  Varro  before  him,  he  said  that  homo, 
coming  from  Jinmus,  indicates  that  if  things  were  to 
Nature's  liking,  all  property  would  be  common  prop- 
erty, since  the  name  for  man  is  derived  from  the 
common  earth.  And  he  made  Ahab,  murdering 
Naboth,  in  order  to  get  his  vineyard,  the  type  of 
the  money-getter. 

Ambrose  referred  to  the  Stoics  as  workers  in  the 
same  vein  of  natural  law.  But  observe  the  differ- 
ence between  him  and  them.  Their  doctrine  of 
Nature  was  vague  and  impersonal,  and  had  no  au- 
thoritative text.  His  doctrine  derived  itself  from  the 
will  of  an  absolute  personal  Creator,  and  was  there- 
fore definite  and  clear.  Above  all,  he  had  the  Bible 
for  his  text,  authoritative  and  simple.  Plainly, 
thought  like  his  was  not  lunar  politics.  Some  time 
or  other,  some  way  or  other,  it  must  tell  upon  ter- 
restrial housekeeping. 

To  show  the  continuity  of  thought,  and  at  the 
same  time  suggest  that  such  ideas  might  easily  break 
out  of  monastic  bounds,  it  is  enough  to  refer  to 
Wycliffe.  He  taught,  following  Augustine,  that 
private  property  originated  in  sin.  Going  further 
than  Augustine,  he  taught,  in  effect,  that  divine 
grace  alone  could  give  a  sure  title  to  property.  This 
is  like  the  Manichaean  position,  and  yet  unlike  it ; 
like  it  in  that  both  are  more  fearlessly  logical  than 
Augustine ;  unlike  it  in  that  the  Manichasans,  being 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  215 

consistent  ascetics,  were  on  the  retreat  for  the  world, 
while  Wycliffe  was  advancing  towards  it.  His  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible  into  the  common  tongue,  and  his 
opposition  to  the  hierarchy,  pointed  out  the  road  he 
was  on.  In  his  conception  of  the  Church,  the  rigor- 
ism of  the  monastic  programme  is  not  far  from  enter- 
ing terrestrial  politics. 

The  opinions  of  the  Fathers  about  interest  can 
easily  be  foreseen.  The  common  feeling  of  antiquity, 
incorporated  within  a  popular  religious  movement  of 
great  depth  and  momentum,  had  its  conclusion  fore- 
ordained. There  is  no  need  to  gather  many  exam- 
ples, when  every  Father  who  touched  the  question 
had  just  one  thing  to  say.  A  brief  reference  to  two 
points  will  serve. 

First,  as  to  theory.  Aristotle's  notion  that  money 
is  barren  was  universally  accepted.  The  interest- 
taker  was  denned  as  "  a  man  who  produced  noth- 
ing." 103  Gregory  of  Nyssa  writes ;  "  What  is  the 
difference  between  the  thief,  who  secretly  takes  the 
property  of  another ;  the  assassin,  who  takes  pos- 
session of  the  goods  of  his  victim  ;  and  the  rich  man, 
who,  in  demanding  interest,  appropriates  what  does 
not  belong  to  him?"104  The  general  maxim  was 
that  Christ  "did  not  take  away  the  law  of  Nature, 
but  confirmed  it." m  Since,  then,  interest  had  no 
root  in  Nature,  it  was  outside  the  pale  of  Christianity. 
Ambrose  puts  the  whole  thing  in  a  nutshell,  when 
he  says,  "Where  the  law  of  war  holds,  there  the  law 
of  interest  holds."  m 

In  the  matter  of  discipline.  The  councils  that 
took  hold  of  the  question  dealt  with  it  just  as  Augus- 
tine dealt  with  the  question  of  property,  drawing 


2l6      •    GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

a  broad  distinction  between  the  laity  and  the  priest- 
hood. Priests  were  forbidden  to  take  interest  under 
severe  penalties,  sometimes  going  as  far  as  deposi- 
tion.107 The  council  of  Elvira  extended  the  prohi- 
bition to  the  laity.  It  stands  alone.108  Yet  the 
exception  is  pregnant  with  suggestion.  Held  in 
the  heat  of  a  great  persecution,  it  pressed  farther 
than  other  councils  the  antagonism  of  the  puritanism 
within  the  Church  to  the  world  outside.  And  Elvira, 
while  solitary  amongst  the  councils,  finds  company 
elsewhere.  The  Emperor  Basil,  in  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, undertook  to  prohibit  interest  at  Constanti- 
nople. Of  course  he  failed.  His  son  Leo,  rescinding 
the  law,  said,  by  way  of  preface,  "  The  human  race 
cannot  be  governed  by  spiritual  laws."  109  The  capitu- 
laries of  Charlemagne  forbade  it  to  the  laity.  In  the 
Pseudo-Isidore  a  decretal  of  Leo  the  Great  says, 
"  that  not  only  the  clergy  ought  not  to  take  interest, 
but  the  laity,  too,  ...  to  the  end  that  all  opportunity 
for  sinning  be  removed."  no  In  plain  sight  lies  the 
conclusion  that  the  council  of  Elvira,  by  reason  of 
its  impracticableness,  was  a  better  index  to  the 
inbred  logic  of  the  patristic  view  than  more  impor- 
tant and  more  prudent  councils. 

The  twofold  constitution  of  the  Church  delivered 
her  from  the  burden  of  consistency.  A  thing  might 
be  essential  to  the  character  of  a  monk  or  priest,  yet 
not  concern  the  layman.  Salmasius,  defending  in- 
terest, is  on  the  true  mediaeval  ground  when  he 
argues  that  the  prohibition  is  as  wise  for  the  clergy 
as  it  is  foolish  for  the  laity.  The  leader  should  have 
a  higher  virtue  than  the  common  herd  of  soldiers. 

The  monastic  programme  for  social  unity  lived  up 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          217 

to  the  patristic  logic  ;  and  in  order  to  do  it,  first 
created,  as  nearly  as  possible,  a  vacuum  for  the  ex- 
periment, into  which  no  disturbing  secular  condition 
could  penetrate.  The  conscience  of  the  world  was 
isolated  and  localized.  It  did  not  speak  from  within 
society.  Still  it  did  not  speak  from  the  clouds. 
While  the  City  of  God  and  the  City  of  Man  were  so 
deeply  parted  that  theory  did  not  try  to  build  a  bridge 
between  them,  yet  the  City  of  God  was  not  a  mere 
vision,  but  an  incorporated  ideal,  having  for  a  body 
organized  monasticism.  It  was  therefore  in  a  very 
real  sense  part  and  parcel  of  history ;  and  safely 
housed  the  conclusions  of  absolute  justice  in  relation 
to  economic  questions. 

Moreover  it  is  necessary  to  remind  ourselves  that 
the  situation  was  wholly  unlike  our  own  economic 
situation,  say  fifty  years  ago,  when  economic  laws 
were  treated  as  if  they  were  independent  of  ethics. 
In  the  period  we  are  studying  conscience  was  not 
so  much  a  deserter  from  economics  as  economics 
from  conscience.  The  economic  aspect  of  the  ethi- 
cal problems  was  below  the  horizon.  The  Church 
monopolized  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  race,  being 
herself  monasticized.  The  city  celestial  and  the 
city  terrestrial  were  separate.  Conscience  and 
reason  were  not  able  to  see  the  economic  side  of 
things.  Not  lack  of  moral  intensity,  but  the  non- 
existence  of  certain  problems  and  the  political  and 
industrial  conditions  that  could  create  them,  is  the 
reason  why  the  ideals  of  absolute  justice,  as  the 
monks  viewed  them,  kept  close  within  the  monastery 
walls. 

Let  it  once  happen  however  that  the  two  cities  be- 


2l8  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

come  in  a  measure  unified ;  that  the  State  assumes 
again  the  character  of  an  agent  for  clear  moral  ends ; 
that  the  idea  of  God  becomes  immanent ;  in  other  words 
that  a  serious  attempt  is  made  to  moralize  human  life 
as  it  is  lived  under  the  conditions  of  time  and  space, 
so  that  the  best  men  and  women  are  summoned  out 
of  the  monastery  to  build  the  family  and  plant  right- 
eousness in  the  earth,  —  then  these  doctrines  born  of 
the  union  between  the  idealizing  forces  of  antiquity 
may  lay  one  hand  on  the  plough  and  the  other  on  the 
sword.  The  rhyme  of  John  Ball  and  his  men,  - 
"  When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span,  Who  was  then 
the  Gentleman  ?  "  is  a  pretty  plain  hint  that  the  mon- 
astery cannot  permanently  confine  its  own  ideals. 
The  attempt  of  Luther's  peasants  to  translate  reli- 
gious liberty  into  political  and  economic  liberty  is 
another. 

But  this  is  not  the  quarter  to  look  to,  if  we  would 
rightly  gauge  the  influence  of  the  Fathers  and  the 
monks  upon  modern  problems.  We  cannot  accept 
their  specific  opinions  unless  we  discount  them  heav- 
ily. The  spiritual  continuity  of  the  world  is  not  to 
be  traced  through  specific  opinions.  How  idle,  how 
worse  than  idle,  would  be  an  attempt  to  explain 
Plato's  power  over  the  Christian  world  by  his  body 
of  opinions  on  the  worth  of  the  barbarians,  the  com- 
munity of  wives,  cosmology,  and  other  matters.  The 
continuity  of  our  intellectual  history  is  to  be  found 
only  in  those  central  and  organizing  conceptions  that 
are  the  heart  of  great  systems.  Now  the  view  of 
the  world  which  the  monks  worked  out  had  for  its 
heart  the  belief  that  the  common  man  was  of  infinite 
worth.  Their  main  reason  for  denouncing  the  world 


vi  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  219 

was  not  hatred  of  the  world  itself,  but  an  exalted  val- 
uation of  the  soul.  The  secular  life  of  their  period 
appeared  to  be  irreconcilable  with  the  true  interests 
of  the  man  within  every  man. 

So  they  went  aside  from  the  secular  in  order  to 
find  the  eternal.  They  were  pessimists  regarding 
civil  society.  They  were  impassioned  optimists  re- 
garding the  ideal  possibilities  of  the  common  man. 
In  centuries  when  war  was  at  every  man's  door,  nay, 
almost  beside  his  pillow ;  when  a  Spanish  knight 
slept,  his  wife  beside  him,  in  the  same  room  with  his 
horse ;  when  industrialism  had  no  space  to  breathe, 
save  in  a  few  small  towns,  — the  monk  held  up  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  Europe  the  dogma  that  the  essen- 
tial humanity  in  every  man  was  so  full  of  meaning 
that  all  existing  social  forms  put  together  could  not 
provide  the  wherewithal  of  self-expression.  The 
monk's  opinions  about  specific  questions  such  as 
luxury  and  interest  radiated  from  this  centre.  The 
world  shrivelled  into  nothing  before  the  universal 
individual.  Society  was  too  mean  and  small  for  him. 
Only  God  was  great  enough  to  contain  him. 

A  new  valuation  of  the  average  man  had  entered 
universal  history.  This  self-same  valuation  is  the 
source  whence  the  social  question  to-day  draws  its 
spiritual,  that  is  to  say,  its  permanent,  sap. 

Herewith  came  into  European  ethic  anew  category. 
Of  the  three  terms  that  are  now  common  stock,  — 
Virtue,  Duty,  the  Highest  Good,  —  the  Greeks  had 
only  two,  the  first  and  the  third.  This  is  in  keeping 
with  their  character  as  the  artists  and  philosophers  of 
antiquity.  They  looked  straight  and  long  at  the  act- 
uality of  things.  Their  subject  was  the  world  as  a 


220          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

completed  world,  as  complete  as  a  finished  statue. 
Their  point  of  view  was  static,  not  dynamic.  The 
categories,  Supreme  Good  and  Virtue,  belong  to  this 
situation ;  for  the  Supreme  Good  is  the  eternal,  im- 
mutable nature  of  things,  and  Virtue  is  that  in  man 
which  enables  him  to  contemplate  it.  The  Supreme 
Good  is  the  inner  order  of  things.  Virtue  is  in  essence 
the  rational  capacity  within  man  through  which  he 
and  that  inner  order  are  in  covenant.  Its  pith  is  the 
ability  to  distinguish  between  the  real  and  the  apparent 
goods,  to  separate  the  permanent  values  of  life  from 
the  passing  ones.  Of  course  the  idea  of  Duty  is  in- 
volved. But  because  the  fundamental  life,  the  life  of 
God,  is  statically  conceived,  whether  as  pure  being  or 
pure  reason,  the  contemplative  life  in  man  gets  the 
priority,  and  the  idea  of  Duty  is  not  made  explicit. 

The  Stoics  approached  it.  For  them  the  practical 
was  a  full  nine-tenths  of  conduct.  They  kept  near 
the  common  people.  Their  view  of  things  had  to 
make  its  fortune  in  a  world  that  had  lost  the  definite 
frontiers  characteristic  of  experience  in  the  classic 
period.  The  category  of  Virtue,  along  with  Su- 
preme Good,  was  enough  when  the  State  was  small 
and  men  found  themselves  in  a  field  of  well-settled 
relationships.  But  now  the  fences  were  down  and 
the  rivers  were  up.  Heterogeneous  masses  of  men 
jostled  each  other  within  one  political  household. 
Humanity  stretched  out  beyond  the  traditional 
boundaries.  The  City  of  the  Universe,  foreboding 
the  City  of  God,  took  the  place  of  the  City-State.  A 
vast  bulk  of  life  called  for  consideration.  The  moral 
sense  moved  about  in  a  world  half-realized.  Obliga- 
tions vague  yet  authoritative  touched  the  conscience. 


VI  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  221 

The  doctrine  of  Duty  was  the  answer  to  them.  In  the 
light  of  the  term  "Virtue"  a  man  looks  into  himself 
to  find  wherein  he  is  or  may  become  of  a  piece  with 
the  essential  being  of  the  universe.  But  the  concep- 
tion of  Duty  sums  up  a  man's  relations  to  the  uni- 
verse and  to  society  as  a  part  of  it  under  the  head 
of  obligation,  and  bids  the  man  look  upon  them  as 
a  debt.  The  Supreme  Good  is  no  fixed  quantity  of 
ultimate  being.  It  is  an  infinite  force.  And  man's 
relations  with  it  must  be  constantly  widening. 

The  Stoic  only  began  the  doctrine  of  Duty.  It  won 
its  full  rights  in  Christian  ethic.  A  new  view  of  things 
had  appeared.  Cosmology  was  no  longer  the  main 
interest.  History  took  its  place.  The  object  upon 
which  the  mind  directs  itself  was  not  a  universe  fin- 
ished, and  like  the  Parthenon  standing  still  to  be 
contemplated  with  peace.  It  was,  rather,  an  histori- 
cal process,  a  body  of  events  made  up  by  deeds 
of  men  and  deeds  of  God,  and  moving  towards  a 
supreme  event  —  called  in  the  Old  Testament  the 
day  of  the  Lord,  and  in  the  New,  the  Second  Coming 
of  Christ,  —  by  which  the  historical  process  is  to  be 
rounded  off.  God  was  not  thought  of  as  pure  being 
or  the  abyss  of  being.  He  is  a  self-directed  will,  a 
living  and  loving  personality,  going  forth  into  self- 
revelation,  and  girding  men  with  an  all-including 
relationship.  The  possibilities  of  character  and  con- 
duct overshadowed  the  actuality.  What  the  best  man 
is,  bears  no  proportion  to  what  he  ought  to  be.  Man's 
will  was  thus  besieged  by  the  infinite.  The  Kingdom 
of  God  besets  him  with  an  opportunity  that  unceas- 
ingly widens,  a  responsibility  that  ceaselessly  deepens. 

The  doctrine  of  Virtue,  taken  by  itself,  belongs  to 


222  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE     CHAP.  VI 

an  organism  of  ideas  for  which  the  existent  is  the 
main  thing.  The  doctrine  of  Duty  belongs  to  one 
for  which  the  ongJit-to-be  has  broad  margins  beyond 
the  is.  So  the  new  category  in  ethics  comes  into 
the  mind  with  the  new  definition  of  man,  the  univer- 
sal individual  potential  in  all  men  and  realized  in 
none.  If  there  is  a  pearl  of  great  price  hidden 
within  the  nature  of  the  lowliest,  if  its  price  is  so 
great  that  nothing  short  of  the  full  being  and  beauty 
of  God  can  come  level  to  it  in  the  market  of  spiritual 
wares,  then  it  is  plain  that  the  relation  which  binds 
the  man  at  the  top  to  the  man  at  the  bottom  hath  an 
infinite  quality  in  it.  The  obligation  of  deepening 
sympathy  and  appreciation  is  authoritative. 

The  ethical  movement  of  our  day  shows  how  sig- 
nificant was  this  change  in  the  line  of  approach  to 
the  social  idea.  Wundt  says  that  the  essence  of 
morality  is  devotion  to  humanity ;  that  morality  with- 
out it  is  pharisaism.111  Now  the  idea  of  Duty  is  the 
coefficient  to  this  idea  of  humanity.  A  man  owes  an 
indefinite,  a  practically  infinite  debt  to  his  neighbor. 
His  duty  means  that  he  is  under  bonds  to  create  in 
himself  a  steadily  growing  capacity  for  wider  and 
deeper  relationships. 

These  two  things  —  the  infinite  or  ideal  worth  of 
every  man,  and  the  sense  of  Duty  that  comes  from 
the  recognition  of  it  —  together  lay  the  ethical  foun- 
dation of  Democracy.  A  democratic  society  exists 
quite  as  much  to  make  new  rights  as  to  insure  the 
old  rights.  Within  it  no  privilege  should  be  allowed 
to  gain  a  foothold,  unless  it  looks  to  the  widening  of 
the  area  of  privilege.  The  fittest  to  survive  in  this 
field  is  he  who  is  efficient  in  creating  his  peers. 


VII 

THE  six  chapters  preceding  have  dealt  with  the 
establishment  of  Christianity  in  Europe  in  relation 
to  that  new  definition  of  man  which  has  given  to  our 
social  theories  a  unit  of  measure,  and  so  has  helped 
to  bring  about  the  great  problem  of  our  day.  The 
aim  of  this  chapter  is  to  review  the  period  from  the 
eleventh  to  the  eighteenth  centuries,  that  is,  from 
the  complete  establishment  of  Christianity  to  its  dis- 
establishment. I  venture  to  place  the  former  event 
in  the  eleventh  century  rather  than  earlier,  because  it 
was  not  until  then  that  the  new  view  of  things  showed 
its  overmastering  grip  on  the  will  by  equipping  the 
papacy  with  the  moral  force  that  enabled  it  to  suc- 
cessfully take  the  field  against  the  Empire.  The 
eighteenth  century  is  the  other  terminus  because  the 
mediaeval  view  was  then  unseated ;  and  reason,  jump- 
ing the  life  to  come,  set  about  the  work  of  building 
a  house  on  the  earth.  In  the  seven  centuries  lying 
between,  we  may  note  certain  phenomena  which  sug- 
gest that  we  have  the  true  clue  to  the  pedigree  of 
the  reformer's  conscience. 

The  period  is  so  broad  that  the  attempt  to  deal 
with  even  one  of  its  main  aspects  within  such  brief 
limits  may  seem  like  a  wanton  offence  against  the 
laws  of  sober  historical  study.  Yet  no  disrespect  to 

223 


224  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

the  scenery  of  a  country  attaches  to  a  view  of  it  from 
an  express  train,  if  nothing  more  is  claimed  than  an 
ability  to  distinguish  between  a  landscape  resting  on 
granite,  and  another  resting  on  limestone.  Irrever- 
ence no  more  belongs  to  a  short  statement  about  a 
great  subject,  than  reverence  belongs  to  a  long  state- 
ment about  a  short  subject.  All  depends  on  the 
motive,  and  upon  the  care  with  which  one  suggests 
a  discount  upon  his  own  conclusions. 

The  period  offers  the  same  advantages  for  the 
study  of  the  history  of  conscience  that  Greece  has 
provided  for  the  study  of  the  history  of  reason.  The 
Greek  mind  was  so  masterful  that  even  when  it  bor- 
rowed it  was  original.  By  means  of  its  own  genius 
it  was  intellectually  isolated,  and  gives  us  our  single 
example  of  a  thoroughly  logical  development.  The 
mediaeval  period,  also,  was  isolated,  not,  indeed,  by 
means  of  intellectual  rnasterhood,  but  by  grace  of 
position.  The  Church  had  been  solidly  grounded  by 
the  fusion  of  the  Biblical  and  the  Graeco-Roman 
views.  Her  authority  in  spiritual  matters  was  as 
much  of  a  certainty  as  two  times  two  make  four. 
She  was  the  keeper  and  dispenser  of  the  clarifying 
thoughts  of  man  no  less  than  of  the  saving  thoughts 
of  God.  The  barbarians  whom  she  christened  and 
catechised  had  no  native  acquirements  that  could, 
for  one  minute,  withstand  the  pressure  of  antiquity 
exerted  through  her.  -Moreover,  until  the  Arabian 
culture,  with  the  complete  text  of  Aristotle  in  its 
hands,  entered  Europe  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  Church  had  no  suspicion  that  between  the  Bibli- 
cal and  the  Graeco-Roman  elements  in  her  consti- 
tution there  could  ever  be  a  serious  conflict.  The 


vu  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  225 

working  consciousness  of  the  Occident  was  com- 
pletely unified. 

The  one  pope  was  the  confessor  of  both  kings  and 
people.  The  Latin  was  the  one  language  in  church 
and  university.  A  single  view  of  the  world  and  of 
man's  place  in  it  dominated  man,  showing  its  power 
over  the  will  by  causing  the  crusades,  while  it  pro- 
claimed its  conquest  of  the  eye  by  building  the 
cathedrals.  People  took  their  faith  for  granted  as 
they  took  the  sky.  Dante  set  Aquinas  to  music. 

Here  then  we  have  a  field  every  way  happy  for  a 
preliminary  study  of  the  way  in  which  the  establish- 
ment influenced  the  development  of  conscience. 

It  is  a  necessary  preface  to  the  study  that  we 
should  once  for  all  clear  our  minds  concerning  the 
significance  of  individuality.  The  danger  besetting 
every  great  movement  of  feeling  is  the  obliteration 
of  distinctions.  Feeling  as  such  is  a  contagion 
rather  than  a  conviction,  taking  possession  of  the 
popular  mind  not  by  the  slow  steps  of  proof,  but  by 
leaps  and  rushes.  Schleiermacher  defined  religion 
in  terms  of  feeling,  apart  from  the  logical  process. 
And  all  great  bulks  of  intense  feeling  have  in  their 
make-up  an  essentially  religious  element.  The  wave 
of  emotion  that  passed  through  Greece  when  the 
Persians  were  beaten  carried  religion  with  it,  even 
in  cases  where  the  Gods  were  not  mentioned.  The 
thrill  that  ran  through  England  when  the  Armada 
was  defeated  was  religious  in  its  nature.  Lincoln's 
Gettysburg  address,  without  the  name  of  God  in  it,  is 
religious  to  the  core.  Movements  of  feeling,  although 
they  may  not  have  an  organized  propaganda,  extend 
themselves  very  much  after  the  method  of  religion. 


226          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

The  rapid  change  in  the  sentiment  of  England 
touching  individualism  is  a  case  in  point.  Hardly 
more  than  a  generation  ago,  it  was  the  social  creed 
of  the  country.  And  now  Herbert  Spencer  is  almost 
like  the  owl  that  is  in  the  desert  or  the  sparrow  that 
sitteth  alone  upon  the  house-top.  Tocqueville  said 
that  the  French  Revolution  bore  itself  after  the  man- 
ner of  religious  revolutions.112  The  social  movement 
in  our  own  time  contains  much  implicit  religion,  and 
is  likely  to  get  more  rather  than  less.  But  religion 
tends  rapidly  to  dogma,  and  dogma  is  apt  to  be 
impatient  of  distinctions.  Truth  is  handled  in  the 
lump,  and  some  serious  dangers  ensue.  We  must 
not  let  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity  blind  us  to  the 
supreme,  the  canonic  value,  of  the  principle  of  in- 
dividuality. 

The  right  and  duty  to  be  individual  is  the  ideal 
element  within  our  social  unrest.  The  constant 
migration  and  mixing  of  peoples,  resulting  in  the 
break-up  of  inherited  constitutions  and  customs  ;  the 
consequent  inability  to  stand  still  for  a  moment  in 
the  old  ways ;  the  enormous  exploitation  of  the  earth ; 
the  heaping-up  of  the  means  to  pleasure ;  the  wide- 
spread desire  for  wealth ;  the  animal  craving  for  a 
full  share  in  the  spoils ;  the  momentous  increase  of 
the  speculative  fever,  —  all  these  elements  have  a 
hand  in  the  disturbances  of  our  time.  If  now  this 
were  the  whole  story,  the  tempestuous  social  agita- 
tion would  without  fail  come  to  an  end  some  day, 
when  the  shattered  nerves  of  society  cried  out  for 
rest  at  any  price,  in  a  new  rule  by  the  strongest,  in 
a  gigantic  trust  called  "  imperialism."  But  there's  an 
ideal  principle  behind  the  agitation  and  hidden  within 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  22/ 

its  most  vulgar  forms,  —  the  principle  of  individuality. 
Whatever  is  highest  in  our  life  and  thought  is  here 
at  stake.  To  strengthen  and  deepen  the  sense  of 
self-masterhood  is  the  main  end  of  all  our  idealizing 
forces. 

In  this  quarter  our  philosophy  makes  or  loses  its 
fortune.  The  history  of  philosophy  has  two  creative 
periods,  — the  Greek  and  the  modern.  The  Greek 
gave  philosophy  to  the  world  with  one  hand,  and  with 
the  other  the  ideal  of  a  free  citizen  who  helps  to  make 
the  laws  he  obeys.  The  two  things  belong  together. 
The  man  who  is  his  own  master  must  have  a  view  of 
his  own.  There  can  be  no  thorough  and  permanent 
philosophy  in  company  with  a  despotism.  The  gov- 
ernment of  society  must  be  vested  in  men  who  have 
the  right  to  make  up  their  own  minds,  else  a  rea- 
soned view  of  the  universe  is  impossible.  Philosophy 
goes  with  the  individual.  The  story  of  modern  phi- 
losophy is  equally  strong  in  evidence.  Descartes  was 
above  all  things  his  own  man.  The  fundamental  rule 
he  laid  down  for  himself  was  to  look  into  himself.  He 
disowned  books,  in  large  measure,  making  it  his  boast 
that  he  was  self-taught.  It  is  true  that  as  an  indi- 
vidual Descartes  was  only  half  made  up.  He  did  not 
dare  differ  from  the  Church.  He  took  his  dogma  in 
block  just  as  tradition  floated  it  down  to  him  out  of 
the  past.  But  as  a  thinker,  he  typified  the  truth  that 
philosophy  has  its  whole  estate  pledged  to  the  princi- 
ple of  individuality. 

Our  science  also  finds  here  its  sole  right  to  exist 
It  made  its  appearance  when  the  house  built  for  the 
mind  by  mediaeval  dogma  began  to  let  in  the  weather. 
It  is  the  work  of  the  individual  reason,  asserting  its 


228  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

right  to  see  the  universe  through  its  own  eyes.  Its 
future  depends  on  the  sense  of  individuality.  The 
mind,  independent  of  external  authority,  possessing 
like  Darwin  just  one  dogma,  —  the  duty  of  loyalty  to 
itself  and  reverent  patience  toward  its  object,  —  is  the 
whole  of  science.  Science  is  not  an  accumulation  of 
facts,  no  matter  how  vast  and  imposing ;  but  an 
attitude,  the  attitude  of  the  individual  mind  taking 
itself  and  the  world  in  time  and  space  with  equal 
seriousness.  Let  the  sense  of  individuality  once  lose 
its  hold,  by  reason  of  a  strain  wrongly  applied  or  too 
long  continued,  and  we  should  have  in  the  place  of 
science  another  dynasty  of  ghosts. 

Again  the  historic  spirit  is  the  spirit  and  the  method 
of  the  individual.  History  is  never  written  until  the 
individual  has  found  himself.  In  India  it  has  not 
been  written  at  all,  because  the  individual,  the  moment 
he  broke  away  from  the  tyranny  of  caste,  forsook  the 
earth ;  that  is  to  say,  gave  up  the  one  sure  foothold 
for  the  principle  of  individuality  and  took  wing  into 
mysticism.  History  was  written  by  the  prophets  of 
Israel  because  they  believed  that  one  man  with  God 
makes  a  majority.  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  wrote 
histories  because  they  were  mature  Greeks.  Customs 
colliding  with  customs  had  made  custom  as  such  an 
impossible  guide  of  life.  One  narrow  polity  had 
drawn  the  sword  upon  another,  to  slay  and  be  slain. 
The  individual  lost  his  old  belongings.  For  a 
while  he  fell  into  sophistry.  Then,  recovering  him- 
self, he  looked  back  over  the  road  his  people  had 
travelled.  He  sought  for  a  continuous  meaning  in 
the  deeds  of  mankind  and  so  wrote  the  first  objec- 
tive history. 


vn  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 


229 


What  we  call  the  historical  spirit  is  simply  the 
spirit  of  self-reliant  and  reverent  individuality.  The 
Reformation  and  the  Renaissance  made  a  violent 
breach  between  consciousness  and  its  immediate  past. 
The  eighteenth  century  widened  the  breach  into  a  gulf. 
Tradition  lost  all  its  value  as  a  dogmatic  authority. 
The  individual,  for  a  time  rioting  in  liberty,  soon 
came  to  himself ;  and  looking  fearlessly  and  patiently 
back,  sought  to  see  things  just  as  they  had  happened. 
Being  an  individual,  he  reverenced  the  individuality 
of  the  past.  Ranke,  in  the  preface  to  his  Universal 
History,  finely  says  that  the  historical  spirit  is  a  new 
kind  of  piety.  That  is  just  it.  The  present,  no 
longer  living  on  the  authority  of  the  past,  but  looking 
into  its  own  heart  and  thinking,  derives  from  rever- 
ence for  its  own  individuality  the  law  which  is  to 
govern  the  student.  The  master-light  of  his  labor  is 
the  desire  to  give  to  the  past  the  right  to  tell  its  story 
in  its  own  tongue. 

The  State,  too,  lives  on  the  principle  of  individual- 
ity. In  case  the  Church  and  the  State  have  never 
been  separated,  as  in  China  to-day,  this  need  not  be 
so.  But  when  once  the  distinction  has  been  clearly 
seen,  it  becomes  inevitable.  The  State  cannot  per- 
manently dominate  the  imagination  of  men  through 
direct  appeal  to  motives  that  are  primarily  religious, 
in  the  common  use  of  the  word.  If  it  is  to  retain 
that  mastery  over  the  imagination  which  redeems  the 
pressure  put  on  the  will  from  the  appearance  of 
tyranny,  and  which  alone  endows  the  State  with  the 
power  to  tax  its  subjects  to  the  uttermost,  and  even  to 
train  them  in  the  master-art  of  dying  gladly  for  Father- 
land, it  must  be  in  fact  or  in  promise  a  free  State  — 


230  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

basing  its  claim  to  authority  on  its  ability  to  ceaselessly 
widen  the  area  over  which  men  govern  themselves. 

Without  going  further,  the  sum  of  the  matter  is : 
that  all  the  idealizing  forces  of  our  time,  which  touch 
to  the  quick  the  problem  of  man's  life  upon  the 
earth,  have  a  common  stake.  The  article  of  faith 
they  stand  or  fall  by  is  the  sovereign  worth  of  indi- 
viduality. Only  so  far  as  the  social  movement  is  in 
partnership  with  them,  does  it  have  the  power  of 
permanent  appeal.  So  far  as  it  is  a  battle  for  the 
mastery  of  the  means  to  pleasure  and  comfort  and 
even  a  certain  amount  of  culture,  and  so  far  as  it  is 
this  alone,  it  is  another  chapter  in  the  war  of  the  kites 
against  the  crows. 

This  long  preamble  is  justified  if  it  be  kept  in  mind 
that  the  subject  is  the  creation  of  the  reformer's  con- 
science ;  for  the  history  of  conscience  is  the  history 
of  the  individual.  The  word  goes  back  to  the  Stoics. 
They  had  this  in  common  with  the  Epicureans  and 
Sceptics ;  namely,  that  the  desire  to  know,  the 
master-passion  of  the  Greek  mind  in  its  best  days, 
had  given  away  to  the  desire  to  find  peace.  They 
differed  however  in  that  they  kept  their  place  in  the 
State,  and  always  appeal  to  the  common  feeling  and 
the  common  interest.  Hence  while  they  emphasized 
individuality,  they  did  not  isolate  it  in  the  life  of  clubs, 
but  kept  it  fairly  close  to  the  social  order  of  things. 
From  this  resulted  their  doctrine  of  conscience.  A 
man  is  responsible  to  God  or  Nature  for  the  right 
handling  of  his  own  life,  outer  and  inner.  Since  how- 
ever he  nowhere  finds  himself  outside  the  political 
and  social  framework,  this  responsibility  for  himself 
includes  a  responsibility  for  his  neighbors.  Because 


VH  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  231 

he  is  an  individual,  it  is  his  duty  to  build  up  within 
himself,  behind  the  world  of  eye  and  ear,  a  world 
whose  values  are  vested  in  the  unseen  ;  and  because 
he  is  not  an  atom  but  one  organ  within  a  vast  body, 
it  is  his  duty  to  see  to  it  that  the  same  unseen  world 
is  built  up  within  his  neighbor. 

Conscience  means  "knowing  along  with."  The 
man  of  conscience  is  a  man  in  whom  the  fair  unities 
of  the  child-life  have  died.  He  is  two  men  in  one. 
An  eternal  element  in  him  rises  up  and  confronts 
the  temporal,  a  higher  nature  declares  war  upon  the 
lower.  The  seventh  chapter  of  Paul's  letter  to  the 
Romans  is  the  record  of  an  impassioned  conscience. 
The  man  of  conscience  has  two  worlds,  alongside 
each  other ;  and  one  of  them  asserts  the  right  of 
absolute  domain.  And  outside  him  as  well  as  inside 
him  are  two  worlds,  lying  side  by  side.  If  the  man 
of  conscience  lived  on  Robinson  Crusoe's  island  he 
might  become  a  quietist  —  unless,  like  St.  Anthony, 
he  established  ethical  communication  with  the  birds 
and  fishes.  As  a  matter  or  fact,  he  is  in  society. 
He  sees  a  higher  humanity  rising  up,  confronting  a 
lower  humanity,  and  claiming  the  same  sovereignty 
that  his  higher  self  asserts  over  his  lower  self. 
There's  a  gulf  between  the  ought-to-be  and  is.  He 
must  undertake  to  bridge  it,  or  deny  himself.  The 
pith  of  conscience  is  the  obligation,  pressing  upon 
him  from  some  authoritative  source,  to  become  an  in- 
dividual, seeing  the  best  through  his  own  eyes  and  lov- 
ing it  for  its  own  sake.  Now,  just  because  the  highest 
good  is  open  to  none  but  individuals,  it  is  his  bounden 
duty  to  create  and  nurture  individuality  in  others. 

D'Argenson,  in  his  Considerations  on  the  Govern- 


232  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHA*. 

ment  of  France  ( 1 739),  wrote :  "  Two  things  are 
principally  desirable  for  the  welfare  of  the  State ; 
first,  that  all  citizens  shall  be  equal  each  to  the  other ; 
second,  that  each  man  shall  be  the  child  of  his  own 
deeds."  The  doctrine  of  conscience  takes  the  second 
head  of  this  proposition  in  the  most  absolute  sense. 
Each  man  should  be  self-made  and  self-mastered  as 
regards  his  character.  If  this  holds  for  a  single  man, 
it  holds  for  all.  Law  is  not  law  unless  it  be  universal. 
Hence,  the  man  of  conscience  must  of  necessity  be  a 
reformer  and  represent  the  aggressive  attitudes  of 
the  ought-to-be  towards  the  is. 

Therefore,  to  the  end  that  there  should  be  a  vigor- 
ous and  stubborn  social  conscience,  there  must  be  a 
deep-rooted  sense  of  individuality.  We  have  seen 
that  the  conquest  of  the  mind  of  the  Mediterranean 
world  by  the  Biblical  idea  of  God  and  man  resulted 
in  an  emphasis  upon  individuality  that  was  altogether 
a  new  thing.  Individuality  is  taken  to  be  the  very 
marrow  of  the  universe.  Nothing  is  real  except  the 
soul,  and  the  soul  is  an  eternal  individual.  The  stars 
may  break  from  their  courses  and  fight  with  one 
another,  the  visible  universe  go  to  wreck,  but  the 
soul  cannot  perish.  Human  individuality  is  the  pith 
of  all  reality  outside  God,  and  the  pledge  of  its  per- 
fection is  nothing  short  of  the  being  that  is  inside 
God. 

In  the  second  place,  there  must  be  a  broad  margin 
of  possibility  beyond  the  actual.  We  have  seen  how 
the  Biblical  view  gave  this  margin.  The  Supreme 
Good  is  in  essence  a  creative  ethical  force.  The 
treasures  of  the  unseen  world  are  used  for  the  cam- 
paign in  this,  and  they  have  but  begun  to  be  spent, 


vii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  233 

The  divine  personality  is  an  infinite  fund  of  possibili- 
ties. Man's  account  with  Nature  is  never  closed.  It 
is  in  this  thought  of  the  creative  novelties  in  God's 
management  of  history  that  the  Church's  doctrine  of 
the  supernatural  started.  However  deeply  we  may 
disagree  over  the  logical  connection  between  the  two, 
it  should  not  be  difficult  for  us  to  agree  about  the 
bearings  of  the  two  taken  together  upon  man's  con- 
ception of  humanity.  Let  the  doctrine  of  grace  in 
its  antagonism  to  and  triumph  over  matter  and  Nature 
be  as  unscientific  as  you  will,  yet  it  did  this  much : 
for  fifteen  hundred  years  it  kept  steadily  before  the 
mind  of  Europe  the  belief  that  the  possible  stored  up 
in  God  for  man  vastly  exceeds  the  actual,  and  must 
get  the  better  of  it,  somehow,  somewhere. 

Since  then  the  existence  and  strength  of  the  re- 
former's conscience  depends  on  these  two  things,— 
the  depth  of  root  belonging  to  the  sense  of  individ- 
uality and  the  breadth  of  the  margin  belonging  to 
the  potential,  —  there  are  two  points  to  be  noted  in 
the  inner  history  of  the  period  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
eighteenth  centuries.  First,  the  theory  of  individual- 
ity by  itself.  Second,  the  aesthetic  of  that  theory  — 
meaning  thereby  the  poetry  of  mediaeval  eschatology. 

Afterwards  we  are  to  recall  the  beginnings  of 
modern  political  theory.  The  definition  of  man  that 
was  shaped  in  the  monastery  cannot  be  put  to  the 
test  until  the  individual  escapes  from  the  monastery 
and  goes  into  politics.  The  full  power  of  the  con- 
science that  was  created  by  Christianity  will  display 
itself  when  the  soul  realizes  the  rights  of  its  neighbors 
as  they  are  found  in  time  and  space.  The  central 
event  of  the  age  that  saw  the  establishment  of  Chris- 


234  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE        CHAP. 

tianity  in  the  Occident  was  the  death  of  the  State. 
The  central  event  of  our  own  time  is  the  growth  of 
the  State  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  agent.  Between 
these  two  events  the  period  now  before  us  stretches 
out.  Its  significance  for  social  theory  is  discovered 
when  the  State  comes  once  more  on  the  stage  of  the 
higher  life. 

The  celestialized  individual,  defended  by  the  mon- 
astery walls,  adopted  the  platform  of  liberty,  equality, 
and  fraternity.  Certain  things  in  the  monastic  con- 
stitution may  blind  us  to  its  real  bearing  upon  our 
subject.  For  example,  the  vow  of  absolute  obedience, 
in  which  the  logic  of  monasticism  issued,  may  seem 
to  be  the  total  undoing  of  self-masterhood.  Again, 
the  vow  of  poverty,  since  it  cuts  up  citizenhood  by 
the  roots,  may  seem  to  take  away  the  sole  ground  on 
which  liberty  may  find  footing. 

But  these  things,  and  others  like  them,  are  an  in- 
dispensable part  of  the  total  view,  which  is  the 
thorough  definition  of  the  individual  in  terms  of  the 
other  world.  To  the  end  that  this  definition  might 
be  driven  home,  the  relationships  that  make  up  life 
in  terms  of  the  visible  order  had  to  be  denied.  Let 
us  distinguish  between  the  intention  of  monasticism 
on  the  one  side  and  its  ways  and  means  on  the  other. 
Thus,  the  vow  of  obedience  was  imposed  because, 
without  it,  the  monastic  society  could  not  have  main- 
tained itself.  The  monks  elected  their  own  head  — 
at  least,  that  was  the  ideal  —  and  then  put  themselves 
under  military  discipline  in  relation  to  him.  Domin- 
ion was  conceived  as  it  was  at  Rome  in  the  best  days 
of  the  Republic.  The  citizens  elected  the  Consul  or 
the  Tribune.  But  upon  the  officers,  once  elected,  the 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  235 

mantle  of  the  authority  of  the  whole  body  politic  at 
once  descended.  Dominion  was  not  distributed. 
There  was  no  division  of  powers.  So  with  the 
monks ;  a  kind  of  martial  law  in  spiritual  things 
was  held  to  be  necessary,  to  insure  the  continuance 
of  the  ideal  life  and  to  guarantee  the  success  of  the 
monastic  programme  for  social  unity. 

Consequently  the  vow  of  obedience  was  a  part  of 
freedom  itself.  The  monks  bound  themselves  by  it  in 
order  that  the  ideal  society  -7-  the  society  which  carried 
men  back  to  the  perfect  state  of  Nature  before  the  Fall 
—  might  not  perish  from  the  earth.  The  ways  and 
means  employed  to  compass  this  end  —  however  out 
of  the  question  they  may  be  for  the  reason  and  con- 
science of  our  own  day  —  should  not  be  allowed  to 
hide  from  us  the  plain  intention. 

With  this  distinction  clearly  drawn,  there  is  little 
difficulty  in  seeing  that  the  monastic  platform  pro- 
claimed liberty  as  an  inherent  element  of  man. 
Within  the  monastic  brotherhood  there  could  be  no 
slaves.  To  become  a  monk  meant  to  become  abso- 
lutely free.  In  the  later  days  of  the  Empire  and  in 
the  time  of  Charles  the  Great  and  his  successors  con- 
siderable legislation  was  directed  against  the  entrance 
of  slaves  and  serfs  into  the  monasteries.  It  was 
based  however  on  political  and  economic  grounds. 
Within  the  monastery,  where  the  purely  religious 
valuation  of  things  held  good,  there  was  no  objection 
whatsoever  to  the  entrance  of  serf  or  slave.  The 
Roman  jurists  had  said  that  liberty  was  the  natalia, 
Nature's  gift  to  man  at  his  birth.  The  monasteries, 
stretching  from  end  to  end  of  Europe,  realized  the 
principle  over  the  tract  of  life  within  their  walls.  In 


236          GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

after  times,  when  they  were  endowed  with  great 
landed  estates  instead  of  supporting  themselves  by 
their  own  labors,  they  held  serfs  in  large  numbers. 
But  this  was  no  part  of  the  monastic  ideal,  and  was 
gainsaid  by  the  monastic  practice  touching  all  real 
members  of  the  order ;  for  all  of  them,  no  matter 
what  their  birth,  were  free.  In  the  light  of  the  eter- 
nal humanity  all  the  differences  between  man  and 
man,  which  the  outside  world  made  so  much  of, 
faded  away. 

Equality  too  was  an  essential  part  of  the  monastic 
scheme.  In  the  fourth  century  Basil's  mother  and 
sisters  were  moved  to  renounce  the  world.  They 
made  a  kind  of  impromptu  nunnery ;  for  in  their  day 
and  region  the  ascetic  ideal  had  not  achieved  clear 
methods  and  fixed  rules.  Their  behavior  is  all  the 
more  significant,  because  the  undrilled  impulses  that 
herald  a  great  movement  often  disclose  more  plainly 
its  inherent  meaning,  in  relation  to  the  old  habits 
from  which  it  calls  men  away,  than  its  developed  and 
constitutional  forms.  Now  Basil's  mother  and  sis- 
ters, who  were  well  born  and  rich,  lived  on  terms  of 
complete  equality  with  their  women  servants  who 
voluntarily  joined  their  colony,  sharing  the  same 
tasks  and  eating  at  the  same  table.113  Having  taken 
their  religion  seriously  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
—  as  they  believed  —  they  thought  it  absurd  to  per- 
petuate distinctions  that  owed  all  their  meaning  to 
the  life  they  had  abandoned. 

Montalembert,  having  this  and  many  similar  phe- 
nomena in  mind,  said :  "  It  is  above  all  to  the  monas- 
tic condition  that  the  fine  expression  of  De  Maistre 
about  the  priesthood  applies  —  '  It  was  neither  above 


vii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  237 

the  last  man  of  the  state  nor  beneath  the  first.'"114 
Allowing  for  De  Maistre's  rhetoric  and  not  attempt- 
ing any  comparison  between  the  man  inside  the  mon- 
astery and  the  secular  grandees  outside,  the  saying  is 
true.  So  far  as  all  within  the  order  went,  there  was 
no  distinction  between  low-born  and  high-born.  In 
the  sphere  of  the  absolute  all  were  on  a  level. 

Lactantius,  in  whom  perhaps  the  Roman  feeling 
about  natural  law  was  more  clearly  precipitated  than 
in  any  other  of  the  Fathers,  was  a  radical  in  his 
theory  of  equality.  "  God  who  has  made  men  has 
willed  that  they  should  all  be  equal."  He  asserts 
that  the  decay  of  the  Empire  was  due  to  inequality ; 
for  "  without  equality  there  is  no  fatherland." 116 
Cyril  said  "equality  is  the  spring  of  law."  The 
severest  condemnation  of  luxury  was  grounded 
by  all  the  Fathers  and  all  the  monks  on  the 
inequality  from  which  it  was  born  and  to  which 
it  gave  birth.  Avarice  also  was  vehemently  de- 
nounced as  the  mother  of  inequality.116  Augus- 
tine, contrasting  the  terrestrial  city  with  the  city 
celestial,  said :  "  Pride  in  its  perversity  apes  God. 
It  abhors  equality  with  other  men  under  Him  ;  but 
instead  of  His  rule,  it  seeks  to  impose  a  rule  of  its 
own  upon  its  equals."  117  Eusebius,  writing  a  de- 
fence of  Christianity,  in  effect  adopts  the  maxim  of 
Ulpian  —  "  All  men  are  equal."  Chrysostom  wrote  : 
"  The  human  law  can  recognize  the  difference  which 
it  has  instituted ;  but  all  this  is  nothing  in  the  eyes 
of  the  common  Lord."  118  Again,  "  How  can  a 
man  boast  of  being  the  son  of  a  prince,  or  of  being 
descended  from  a  noble  family  ? "  119  Quotations 
to  the  same  effect,  from  all  over  the  field,  could  be 
almost  shovelled  together. 


238  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

Augustine,  expressing  what  was  in  the  mind  of  the 
whole  Church,  described  the  laws  of  the  State  as  so 
many  breaches  in  the  ideal  constitution,  caused  by 
the  entrance  of  sin.  He  added,  of  course,  that  the 
divine  will  would  tolerate  this  badly  mixed  condition 
of  things  until  the  Judgment  Day  ;  12°  and  thus  a 
revolutionary  assessment  of  society  was  bound  over 
to  keep  the  peace.  None  the  less,  much  ground  was 
yielded  to  it.  A  compromise  was  made.  The  revo- 
lution was  permitted  in  the  monasteries ;  yea,  it  was 
more  than  permitted ;  it  was  affirmed  to  be  the 
thing  that  was  perfectly  to  God's  liking.  The  world 
outside,  while  claiming  the  right  to  be  saved  through 
inconsistency,  was  not  allowed  for  one  minute  to 
flatter  itself  that  reason  and  conscience  were  its 
allies. 

In  truth  the  outside  world,  the  layman's  world,  did 
not  dream  of  setting  up  any  such  claims.  It  was 
aware  of  its  rational  and  ethical  inconsequence.  It 
built  its  hopes  of  salvation  on  its  neighborhood  to  the 
men  of  thorough  reason  and  conscience,  —  the  monks. 
Without  their  prayers  the  lay  world  would  lie  in 
darkness.  From  the  heart  of  the  monastic  life  rose 
the  prayers  that  pierced  the  clouds  and  came  even 
before  the  throne  of  the  Almighty.  The  saints 
whose  lives  made  up  the  inner  petals  of  Dante's  rose 
had  been  brought  up  within  the  monastery  ;  so  that 
the  worship  of  the  saints  was  the  worship  of  the 
revolutionary  ideal  as  it  took  flesh  in  the  men  who 
were  the  masters  of  the  world's  religious  imagination 
and  feeling.  Evidently,  the  compromise,  by  which 
the  world  of  business  and  pleasure  brought  the 
right  to  continue  in  its  ways  without  being  excom- 


vii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  23$ 

municated  by  reason  and  conscience,  made  great 
concessions. 

The  monastic  view  of  things  promised  to  keep 
within  its  own  pale,  and  not  intrude  upon  the  estate 
of  the  other  party  to  the  contract.  Was  it  possible 
to  carry  such  a  bargain  out  ?  The  monastery  was 
the  city  of  God.  Its  address  in  time  and  space  was 
as  definite  as  Venice  or  Antwerp.  The  saint  was  the 
man  after  God's  heart;  and  the  worldling  believed  that 
only  in  partnership  with  him  is  salvation  possible. 
The  grave  was  the  boundary  between  the  fair  land 
beyond  where  all  men  are  equal,  and  the  unhappy 
country  on  this  side  whose  life  is  ruled  and  domi- 
neered by  inequality.  But  what  an  insecure  frontier ! 
The  outside  world  had  no  guarantee  against  inva- 
sion. Right  is  absolute  or  it  is  nothing.  If  there  is 
a  categorical  imperative,  it  must  sooner  or  later  claim 
universal  dominion.  "  Geographical  morality  "  is 
an  impossibility.  Reason  and  Conscience,  as  the 
monastic  programme  conceive  them,  were  not  disem- 
bodied spirits.  The  monasteries,  planted  all  over 
Europe,  were  their  bodies.  How  was  it  possible  for 
the  layman's  world  to  safeguard  itself  ?  How  prevent 
the  monastic  belief  on  such  a  question  as  the  relation 
between  the  traditional  estimate  of  property  and  rank 
on  the  one  side  and  man's  eternal  individuality  on 
the  other  —  from  breaking  bounds  and  intruding 
upon  political  opinion  ? 

When  a  man  turned  monk,  he  dropped  his  old  name. 
This  signified  that  he  gave  up  all  claims  to  worldly 
distinctions,  and  that  the  highest  earthly  title  was 
vanity.  His  new  name  proclaimed  his  belief  that, 
having  now  come  into  the  presence  of  the  highest,  he 


240          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

found  himself  on  a  level  with  every  man  in  the  order. 
The  Epicureans  had  a  fine  saying,  that  one  friend 
is  the  stage  on  which  another  friend  acts  his  part. 
Within  the  monastery  the  soul  of  the  lowest  born 
might  be,  often  was,  the  stage  upon  which  the  high- 
est born  lived  his  best  life.  "The  disowning  of  one 
name  and  the  taking  of  another  stood  for  the  passing 
away  of  the  old  order  of  things.  The  difference 
between  man  and  man,  between  the  classes  and  the 
masses,  disappears.  All  men  are  brothers.  There 
is  one  level  of  humanity. 

So  here  we  have  the  revolutionary  platform  — 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity  —  carried  out  wholly  in 
purpose,  and  very  largely  in  practice.  The  monastery 
was  outside  the  political,  social  order.  Still  it  was 
upon  the  earth,  within  stone's  throw.  Calvin  lived 
long  by  Lake  Geneva.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he 
ever  truly  saw  it.  Yet  a  day  shall  come  when  Lake 
Geneva  will  insist  upon  being  seen.  Two  times  two 
rriust  always  make  four,  however  long  men  may  put 
off  their  debts  to  mental  arithmetic.  There's  no  such 
thing  as  dead  force.  The  pressure  exerted  by  the 
snow  on  the  mountain  top  is  as  little  static,  as  truly 
kinetic,  as  the  power  of  the  avalanche.  Only  the  di- 
rection of  the  pressure  changes.  To  deny  or  belittle 
the  vast,  though  largely  potential,  significance  of  the 
monastic  epoch,  from  300  A.D.  to  1300,  for  the  poli- 
tics and  sociology  of  Europe,  would  be  to  belittle  or 
deny  the  reality  of  force. 

The  Church's  treatment  of  slavery  is  at  once  a 
puzzle  and  demonstration.  On  the  one  hand  a  vast 
deal  was  done  to  emphasize  the  spiritual  worth  of  the 
slave.  In  everything  that  touched  the  Church's  inner 


va  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  241 

life,  he  was  treated  always  as  a  person,  never  as  a 
thing.  His  marriage  was  regarded  from  the  beginning 
as  binding  and  sacramental,  and  in  the  twelfth  century 
Pope  Adrian  ruled  that  the  consent  of  the  master 
was  not  necessary  to  its  validity.  In  the  list  of  the 
Martyrs,  the  roll-call  of  heroes,  the  slaves  are  well 
represented.  The  slave  could  enter  the  priesthood. 
He  must  indeed  be  first  emancipated,  but  that  was 
required  not  because  slavery  made  him  any  the  less 
a  man,  but  because,  without  emancipation,  the  mas- 
ter, by  asserting  legal  rights  over  one  priest,  would 
lower  the  dignity  of  the  entire  priesthood,  and  im- 
peril the  Church's  sovereignty.  Against  all  the  hide- 
ous cruelties  attaching  to  Roman*slavery,  the  Church 
set  her  face  like  a  flint.  Then  again  the  fine  fashion 
of  emancipating  slaves,  brought  into  vogue  by  the 
Stoics,  undoubtedly  became  much  stronger  under 
Christianity,  so  that  cases  of  wholesale  emancipation 
were  by  no  means  rare. 

Yet  when  all  is  said  for  the  Church  that  can  be 
fairly  said,  it  remains  true  that  her  attention  was 
never  directed  to  emancipation  as  a  real  issue.  This 
is  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  interpretation  of 
St.  Paul's  words :  "  Wast  thou  in  the  state  of  servi- 
tude when  thou  becamest  a  Christian  ?  Let  not  that 
occupy  thy  thought,"  etc.  (i  Cor.  vii.  21).  A  few 
commentators  explained  it  in  the  natural  and  literal 
sense.121  But  the  great  majority  took  it  the  other 
way.  Thus  Chrysostom,  "the  apostle  means  to 
point  out  that  a  man  gets  nothing  by  being  made 
free.  The  slave  is  a  free  man  when  he  is  freed  from 
passions  and  the  diseases  of  the  mind."  In  later 
times,  the  passage  was  almost  universally  interpreted, 


242  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

so  far  as  I  know,  in  the  so-called  moral  and  mystical 
sense.  Its  literal  meaning  was  taken  away  in  order 
not  to  disturb  existing  social  conditions. 

Why  did  not  the  Church  live  up  to  her  own  concep- 
tion of  personality  ?  Why  did  she  not  go  upon  a 
clear  policy  of  emancipation  ?  There  are  some  ques- 
tions that  betray  their  impertinence  the  moment  they 
are  asked,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  Plato,  in  effect, 
denned  unrighteousness  as  the  attempting  to  do  two 
things  at  once.  The  definition  is  as  true  for  the  race 
as  for  the  individual.  Specialization  is  as  necessary 
in  universal  history  as  in  the  training  of  the  single 
mind.  The  Lord  of  history  would  seem  to  approve 
of  Plato  in  this  matter.  Israel,  Hellas,  Rome,  had 
distinct  functions  in  the  world's  economy.  Why  not 
the  monastic  and  imperial  Church  ?  If  it  is  a  very 
real  kind  of  unrighteousness  to  attempt  two  things 
at  a  time,  is  it  not  a  piece  of  intellectual  unrighteous- 
ness to  ask  the  question  with  which  this  paragraph 
opened  ?  If  there  is  anything  that  lies  in  plain  sight 
on  the  page  of  history,  this  conclusion  does :  that  the 
establishment  of  Christianity  in  the  Occident,  with 
the  body  of  ideas  that  went  into  it,  was  indispensable 
to  the  being  and  development  of  our  modern  life; 
that  without  it  the  definition  of  the  individual  could 
not  have  been  made. 

No  great  idea  ever  appeared  in  all  its  bearings  as 
soon  as  it  was  born.  It  is  only  in  myth  that  an  infant 
Hercules,  in  the  eighth  month  of  his  life,  strangles  the 
serpents.  The  permanent  principle  in  the  education 
of  the  race  is  evolution.  Were  a  great  conception 
to  strike  at  first  with  full  force,  the  guillotine  would 
become  a  symbol  of  the  educational  process;  because 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  243 

every  conception  that  was  really  great  would  straight- 
way cut  the  cord  between  the  present  and  the  past. 
The  Church  of  the  period  we  are  studying  is  to  be 
judged  by  her  conception  of  man  and  by  what  some 
day  must  issue  from  it ;  not  condemned,  because  all 
the  issues  hidden  in  it  did  not  come  more  speedily 
into  the  light. 

The  priesthood  of  the  mediaeval  Church  manifested 
the  democratic  quality  in  the  monastic  definition  of 
the  individual.  Protestants  have  often  called  that 
priesthood  a  "  caste."  But  this  is  very  far  from  being 
correct.  Had  the  Church  failed  in  her  resistance 
to  the  feudalization  of  the  clergy,  something  like  a 
real  caste  might  have  developed.-  But  as  it  is,  the 
likeness  is  confined  to  details,  while  the  unlikeness  is 
fundamental.  A  caste,  in  common  with  an  aristocracy, 
makes  much,  almost  everything,  of  genealogy.  But 
to  the  mediaeval  ideal  of  the  priesthood  genealogy 
was  a  matter  of  absolute  indifference.  So  far  as  the 
interests  of  Democracy  go,  the  mediaeval  priesthood 
was  far  more  advanced  than  the  levitical  system  of 
the  Old  Testament,  since  therein  also  a  clear  line  of 
descent  was  the  essential  element  in  the  right  to 
administer  holy  things.  At  bottom,  the  mediaeval 
priesthood  was  absolutely  anti-aristocratic.  The  door 
into  it  stood  wide  open  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men.  More  than  once  the  peasant's  son  reached  the 
papal  chair. 

The  democratic  force  that  came  into  society  with 
Western  Christianity  cannot  be  more  plainly  seen 
than  by  contrasting  the  Feudal  Aristocracy  with  the 
Sacred  Tribes — the  Patricians — at  Rome.  Here,  as 
everywhere  in  the  primitive  tribal  view,  the  religious 


244          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

principle  and  the  aristocratic  principle  went  hand  in 
hand.  Although  we  may  think  it  a  long  journey 
from  Pharaoh  to  Agamemnon,  still  Agamemnon  has 
in  him  an  element  of  the  Pharaoh,  in  that  he  is  a 
Zeus-descended  King.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
aristocratic  feeling  and  the  religious  feeling,  while  in 
practice  they  sometimes  ran  together,  had  always 
distinct  channels  to  flow  in.  The  religious  principle 
and  the  aristocratic  principle  are  separated  on  a  large 
scale.  The  soul  had  nothing  to  do  with  questions  of 
descent.  The  priest  had  nothing  to  do  with  a  pedi- 
gree. The  mediaeval  priesthood  was  the  complete 
negation,  in  terms  of  transcendence,  of  the  aristocratic 
view  of  the  world. 

Another  illustration  of  the  power  stored  up  in  the 
new  definition  of  the  individual  is  found  in  the 
Puritan  movement.  We  need  not  be  at  pains  to 
discriminate  between  the  elements  of  Puritanism  that 
are  directly  due  to  the  influence  of  the  rediscovered 
Bible  and  those  which  it  inherits  from  the  mother 
Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  For  our  subject  they 
are  inseparable.  Nobody  nowadays  thinks  it  is 
possible  for  one  generation  to  take  a  broad  jump 
over  the  thirty  generations  forerunning  it  and  come 
down  on  the  clear  ground  of  Biblical  truth.  All  our 
belief  in  evolution  would  have  to  be  given  up  before 
we  could  think  so.  Therefore  no  material  harm  is 
done  to  the  facts  if  we  say  that  the  universal  individ- 
ual, who  had  shut  himself  up  in  the  monastery  in 
order  to  find  himself,  took  a  long  step  towards  the 
social  and  political  order  of  things,  when  Puritanism 
took  the  field  on  the  Continent  and  in  England. 

The  sociologic  significance  of  Puritanism  is  found 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  245 

in  its  undoing  of  the  dual  constitution  which  was  the 
central  feature  in  the  working  plan  of  the  mediaeval 
Church.  There  had  been  two  codes  of  ethic.  One 
was  thorough-going  and  consistent,  —  the  ethic  of 
perfection,  the  law  of  saints.  The  other,  half-way 
and  halting,  was  for  the  mass  of  the  laity.  But  now 
there  was  to  be  a  single  code  for  the  priest  and 
people.  The  word  "  saint  "  went  forth  from  monas- 
tic bounds  and.  claimed  everything  that  was  human. 
There  had  been  in  effect  two  Churches:  the  inner 
monastic  Church  and  the  outer  lay  Church.  But 
Puritanism  insisted  upon  a  single  Church.  The 
distinction  between  the  Church  of  the  clergy  that 
governs,  and  the  Church  of  the  laity  that  obeys, 
disappeared.  Its  place  was  taken  by  the  distinction 
between  the  Church  invisible  and  the  Church  ap- 
parent. In  the  light  of  the  eternal,  nothing  can  be 
good  for  one  man  that  is  not  law  for  all  men.  Thus 
the  definition  of  the  individual  broke  from  its  monas- 
tic cover. 

The  idea  of  God  was  still  in  a  large  measure  trans- 
cendent. We  must  be  careful  however  how  we  use 
the  word.  The  idea  of  God  in  Puritanism  was  indeed 
transcendent  in  relation  to  the  beauty  and  joy  of 
Nature.  At  the  same  time  it  became  profoundly 
immanent  in  its  relation  to  the  inner  life  of  the 
common  man.  The  vast  imperial  institution  called 
the  Church  no  longer  mediated  between  him  and  the 
source  of  all  spiritual  or  permanent  values.  His 
own  hands  now  touched  the  eternal,  and  not 
another's  for  him.  The  idea  of  God  came  forth  in 
unveiled  majesty  to  wed  itself  to  the  idea  of  the 
individual. 


246  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

This  is  the  social  significance  of  the  predestinarian 
view  of  the  world.  In  the  mind  of  Augustine  the 
predestinarian  plan  of  things  lay  alongside  the  insti- 
tutional view.  The  two  were  not  conciliated.  Each 
was  master  by  turns.  Calvin  gave  the  sceptre  to  the 
predestinarian  view  so  that  it  proceeded  to  organize 
all  truth  along  its  own  line.  The  absolute  sover- 
eignty of  God  and  the  absolute  individuality  of  man 
were  the  two  poles  of  the  system.  What  are  called 
the  theological  horrors  of  the  system  do  not  concern 
us  one  way  or  the  other.  The  historian  of  the 
social  idea  is  interested  solely  by  the  bearing  of  the 
system  upon  the  principle  of  individuality.  Here 
then  is  the  main  point.  The  dogma  of  the  divine 
sovereignty  fell  fiercely  upon  all  the  institutions  and 
traditions  of  the  mediaeval  Church,  reducing  them 
almost  to  dust.  The  individual  came  out  from 
behind  them  and  filled  the  eye. 

Moreover  the  doctrine  concerning  the  divine  sov- 
ereignty, and  the  doctrine  concerning  the  absolute 
human  individual  that  went  with  it,  came  to  close 
quarters  with  the  existing  State.  Puritanism  agreed 
with  monasticism,  that  the  one  thing  that  has  worth  in 
the  universe  is  the  soul.  But  the  soul  is  independent 
of  monasticism.  Its  fortune  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
divine  choice.  That  choice  owes  nothing  to  circum- 
stance. It  is  a  free  creative  act  on  God's  part,  calling 
men  unto  perfection,  and  insuring  for  them  the 
eternal  goods  without  causing  any  change  of  place. 
The  absolute  human  individual,  carrying  all  true 
values  within  himself,  does  not  need  to  stir  a  step 
from  his  position  in  society.  There  is  a  single 
Church.  No  grades  of  sainthood  are  tolerated.  Out- 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  247 

side  the  pale  of  the  elect  all  is  darkness.  Inside  all 
is  light,  —  the  light  of  common  dependence  upon  God 
and  complete  equality  in  the  divine  choice.  So  the 
standard  of  an  absolute  value  quits  fighting  at  long 
range  and  comes  to  close  quarters  with  secular 
society.  Wherever  it  strikes  the  aristocratic  tradi- 
tions of  the  State,  it  cuts  sheer  through  them.  The 
spirit  of  Cromwell's  Ironsides  is  abroad. 

The  undoing  of  the  dual  constitution  of  the  Church 
drew  after  it  a  wide  extension  of  the  sense  of  sin. 
In  the  mediaeval  programme  of  conduct  it  was  possi- 
ble for  the  happy,  joyous  life  of  the  natural  man  to 
go  on  in  one  part  of  the  field,  while  the  sense  of  sin 
was  specialized  and  localized  in  the  other.  But  the 
Puritans  insisted  upon  carrying  the  sense  of  sin  over 
the  whole  field.  What  the  consequences  for  aesthetics 
were,  everybody  knows.  American  Puritanism  was 
greatly  aided  in  working  out  its  logic  by  the  raw  con- 
tinent it  settled  on.  The  wilderness  however  did  but 
provide  an  open  field  for  the  inner  principle  to  deploy 
upon.  Puritanism  made  a  thorough-going  breach 
between  the  life  of  Nature  and  the  life  of  grace.  It 
monasticized  the  secular.  Art  had  about  the  same 
footing  that  poetry  found  in  the  New  England 
Primer. 

The  political  effects  of  this  universalized  sin- 
consciousness,  and  of  the  overpowering  emphasis  on 
the  sovereignty  of  God  with  which  it  went  along,  are 
written  large  on  the  page  of  history.  The  career  of 
the  Independents,  their  programme  for  a  reformed 
Parliament  with  its  steps  toward  radical  Democracy, 
above  all  the  deliberate  execution  of  the  King,  showed 
that  institutions  of  the  largest  pedigree  would  shrivel 


248  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

up  in  the  heat  of  the  people's  right,  when  once 
people's  right  had  been  identified  with  God's  right. 
There  can  be  no  value  above  the  infinite.  New 
England  tells  the  same  story.  The  saints,  the  elect, 
owing  nothing  to  merit,  owing  all  to  the  sovereign 
grace  of  God,  stand  on  a  level  with  the  highest. 
The  doctrine  of  universal  sinfulness,  once  outside  the 
monastery,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  decrees, 
once  outside  the  inconsistencies  of  the  Augustinian 
system,  became  levelling  forces  of  vast  power. 

Finally  the  Reformation  after  taking  the  new  unit 
of  social  theory,  the  universal  individual,  out  of  the 
monastery,  and  setting  his  face  toward  the  secular 
life,  armed  him  with  the  open  Bible.  It  is  the  glory 
of  the  Bible  that  it  can  be  rightly  read  only  in  the 
open  air.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  for  the 
most  part  thought  out  and  lived  in  the  open  air. 
Not  scholars  and  not  mystics,  but  statesmen  and 
missionaries  wrote  it.  Thence  comes  its  freedom 
from  the  isolating  and  specializing  tendencies  of  cult- 
ure. Thence  the  marvellous  absence  of  the  leviti- 
cal  and  sacerdotal  conception  of  religion  from  the 
prophetical  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  and  from 
the  whole  of  the  New.  The  Bible  is  the  book  of  the 
common  man  in  religion.  When  the  Ten  Tables  were 
published  at  Rome,  it  signified  that  law  was  to  be 
thenceforward  the  property  of  all,  no  longer  the 
privilege  of  a  few.  So  the  opening  of  the  Bible  to 
the  laity  signified  that  the  highest  things  were  hence- 
forward to  be  the  unfettered  prerogative  of  the  com- 
mon mind.  The  common  man  was  brought  close  to 
the  sacred  text.  Between  him  and  the  holiest,  no  med- 
itator was  any  longer  needed.  The  deepest  mysteries 


vii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          249 

of  God  come  out  of  their  hiding-place  and  beckon 
to  him. 

Never  before  had  such  a  thing  been  done  anywhere 
in  history  except  in  the  first  period  of  Christianity. 
The  sacred  books  of  India  were  the  monopoly  of  the 
Brahmins.  Even  in  Buddhism  the  monopolistic  ele- 
ment was  not  c.ut  up  by  the  root ;  the  common  man 
could  indeed  come  to  the  highest  things;  but  he  had 
to  become  an  ascetic,  a  specialist  in  spiritual  things, 
in  order  to  do  it.  The  Jewish  Church,  building  the 
doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon  through  her 
scholars,  made  those  scholars  the  masters  of  scriptural 
interpretation.  They  also  were  specialists,  and  to 
them  belonged  the  power  of  the  keys.  But  Protes- 
tantism put  the  Bible  in  the  common  layman's  hand. 
What  else  can  this  mean  than  that  the  common  man's 
spiritual  capacity  is  now  put  at  the  highest  figure  ? 
It  was  declared  to  be  a  part  of  salvation  to  believe 
that  the  Bible  must  not  be  kept  from  him.  He  was 
thereby  brought  within  the  pale  of  the  supreme  good. 
His  mind  was  dogmatically  declared  to  be  level  to 
the  highest  things. 

And  he  did  not  need  to  become  a  specialist.  He 
need  not  go  apart  from  the  social  and  political  order. 
He  stood  fast  in  his  old  tracks.  The  Bible  came  to 
him  and  bade  him  throw  open  his  whole  life  to  it. 
The  Bible  is  the  book  of  a  spiritual  Democracy.  To 
entrust  the  average  layman  with  it  was  a  potent  sign 
of  the  coming  Democracy  in  politics.  The  common 
school  was  necessitated  by  the  common  Bible.  They 
are  connected  historically.  They  are  bound  together 
in  logic.  When  the  layman  was  given  the  freedom 
of  God's  City,  it  became  of  vital  importance  to  so 


250  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

equip  him  that  he  might  understand  for  himself  the 
saving  thoughts  of  God.  And  what  force  can  keep 
the  man,  who  has  the  right  of  suffrage  in  God's 
things,  from  claiming  the  suffrage  in  man's  affairs  ? 

I  have  so  far  discussed  the  theory  of  individuality 
as  it  appears  in  the  more  notable  phenomena  of  the 
period  under  review.  I  now  pass  to  the  influence 
exerted  by  the  Christian  doctrine  about  the  Last 
Things  upon  the  imagination  of  Europe, —  the  aesthetic 
of  individuality.  In  order  to  appreciate  the  impor- 
tance of  this  matter,  we  must  call  to  mind  the  differ- 
ence between  the  practical  man  and  the  philosopher. 
The  philosopher  looks  to  the  nature  of  things.  The 
practical  man  looks  to  the  upshot.  The  philosopher 
is,  on  the  whole,  quite  as  much  interested  in  the 
process  as  in  the  issue.  The  practical  man  has  no 
eyes  save  for  the  issue.  And  there  are  many  varieties 
of  the  practical  man.  The  broker,  to  whom  the  ideal 
is  synonymous  with  the  unreal,  is  one.  The  impas- 
sioned reformer,  to  whom  nothing  but  the  ideal  is 
real,  is  another.  Then  there  is  the  statesman  and  the 
prophet.  All  of  these  men,  however  widely  they  may 
differ  in  other  things,  are  at  one  in  emphasizing  the 
end,  in  looking  eagerly  for  the  result.  And  there 
can  be  no  question  that,  taking  all  varieties  of  the 
practical  man  together,  they  stand  towards  the  phi- 
losopher easily,  as  one  thousand  to  one.  Plato  found 
few  philosophers  in  his  time.  They  have  not  been 
common  at  any  time  since. 

Even  poetry  is  on  the  practical,  rather  than  the 
philosophical  side,  for,  as  Coleridge  says,  the  antithe- 
sis to  poetry  is  not  prose,  but  science.  Science  deals 
with  what  is.  Poetry,  being  an  impassioned  contem- 


vii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  251 

plation  of  the  best  that  is  hidden  in  things,  carries 
this  into  the  light  of  an  onght-to-bc.  The  poet,  then, 
is  practical,  in  the  large  sense  of  the  word.  He  deals 
mostly  with  the  working  will.  His  own  art  is  a  tri- 
umphant manifestation  of  will,  since  it  consists  in 
giving  form  to  matter.  Consequently,  the  proportion 
of  the  practical  to  the  philosophical  goes  still  higher. 
If  we  could  reduce  the  total  experience  of  our  race 
to  units  of  consciousness,  it  would  be  found  that  an 
overwhelmingly  large  part  of  them  would  be  on  the 
side  of  the  working  creative  will  in  humanity.  Hence 
it  is  essential  to  the  history  of  the  social  question  that 
we  should  pay  close  attention  to  the  influence  exerted 
by  Christian  eschatology. 

Eschatology  provides  the  religious  feeling  with  its 
poetry,  opening  to  it  a  land  where  it  may  flow  un- 
vexed  towards  its  outlet  in  the  finished  plan  of  God. 
I  shall  touch  but  one  aspect  of  it  here, — the  mediaeval 
doctrine  of  hell, — because  it  bears  so  directly  upon  the 
principle  of  individuality.  Hell  is  conscience  in  colors. 
The  immense  part  played  by  the  doctrine  is  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  vast  emphasis  laid  by  Christianity  on  the 
individual's  responsibility  for  himself.  The  point  in 
it,  which  is  most  offensive  to  moderns,  is  the  assertion 
that  the  sinner  deserves  an  everlasting  punishment ; 
albeit  his  life  on  earth  is  a  mere  handful  of  years,  he 
does  commit,  in  the  act  of  sinning  against  God,  an 
infinite  sin,  and  consequently  merits  an  infinite  pun- 
ishment. This  self-same  dogma  is  most  significant 
as  a  hint  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  development  of 
individuality.  That  belief  in  an  infinite  punishment 
of  a  deed  done  on  earth  is  the  night-side  of  the  medi- 
aeval belief  in  the  infinite  worth  and  capacity  of  the 


252  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

soul.  The  possibility  of  committing  an  infinite  sin 
is  the  negative  aspect  of  man's  capacity  for  an  infi- 
nite good.  So  the  dogma  of  everlasting  penalty  was 
an  inference  from  the  conviction  that  every  man's 
heart  contains  something  above  all  price.  The  whole 
of  Nature  is  subdued  to  the  spiritual  interests  of  men. 
The  noble  picture  in  the  Apocalypse — the  woman  who 
is  dressed  in  the  sun  and  stands  with  her  feet  on  the 
moon,  and  has  a  diadem  of  twelve  stars  on  her  head  — 
is  the  abiding  symbol  of  this  sovereignty  of  human 
interest  in  the  universe.  The  centre  of  human  inter- 
est was  the  keeping  of  the  conscience.  The  picture 
of  hell  was  one  side  of  an  impressionist's  expression 
of  the  eternal  value  that  dwells  in  the  common  man. 
Eschatology  also  provided  a  platform  for  the  work- 
ing will.  Here  it  took  on  the  form  of  an  aesthetic 
for  the  reforming  conscience.  The  visions  of  Hilde- 
garde  in  the  twelfth  century  were  the  monastic 
assessment  of  the  social  order  in  terms  of  an  uncom- 
promising ideal :  Nature  trembles  at  the  touch  of 
God's  holy  will.  Savonarola's  vision  of  the  whale, 
on  whose  back  is  a  city  that  shudders  with  forebod- 
ings of  destruction,  whenever  the  monster  shakes 
himself,  represented  the  awful  gulf  between  what 
conscience  demands  for  men  and  what  society  actu- 
ally gives.  The  visions  of  the  Abbot  Joachim,  who 
had  a  profound  influence  upon  the  Franciscans,  were 
in  the  same  vein.  The  whole  frame  of  existing  so- 
ciety becomes  as  a  thin  curtain,  moving  at  every 
breath  of  the  divine  judgment.  The  Dies  Ires  and 
hymns  of  its  class  showed  that  this  eschatology  was 
not  a  dream  of  hermits,  but  penetrated  deep  down 
into  the  popular  conscience. 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  253 

The  belief  in  the  earnestness  of  God,  —  another 
name  for  the  divine  righteousness, — the  intense  con- 
viction of  His  ultimate  victory  over  the  world,  gave 
birth  to  these  visions  and  hymns.  They  draw  their 
food  from  the  Bible.  Israel  first  presented  to  the 
mind  the  thought  of  a  moral  goal  for  history  —  a 
thought  foreign  to  heathendom.122  Renan  says : 
"  Israel  has  so  dearly  loved  justice  that,  not  finding 
the  world  just,  she  condemned  it  to  destruction."123 
The  New  Testament,  through  the  connection  between 
the  Second  Coming  of  Christ  and  His  actual  life  on 
earth,  enables  the  Old  Testament  belief  to  strike  its 
root  deeper  into  history.  God  will  have  either  a  per- 
fect world  or  no  world  at  all.  Conscience  will  not 
give  quarter  to  the  half-good :  it  will  not  put  up  with 
the  might-be-worse  policy.  Hell  yawns  beneath  a 
society  that  is  not  absolutely  in  earnest  with  its  own 
betterment. 

There  are  many  things  in  the  period  before  us 
which  amply  prove  that  the -genius  of  medievalism 
knew  how  to  work  with  its  hands,  and  did  not  exhaust 
its  passion  in  brave  dreams.  The  institution  of  the 
Sabbath,  inherited  from  Judaism,  was  like  a  fortress 
planted  amongst  the  working  days  to  maintain  the 
overlordship  of  God.  The  Sabbath  stood  for  the  idea 
that  man  belonged  to  God,  and  that  the  lowliest  man 
should  be  a  man  of  leisure  on  that  day,  owing  his 
time  to  nobody  but  God.  The  council  of  Wessex 
(691  or  692  A.D.)  legislated  that  if  a  slave  was  forced 
by  his  master  to  work  on  the  Sabbath,  he  was  to 
become  free.  The  slave  is  God's  man  on  that  day; 
and  God  warns  the  mighty  not  to  trespass  on  His 
domain. 


254          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

With  this  goes  the  idea  of  divine  dominion.  Every 
religion,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  has  vested  the 
title  to  the  earth  in  its  gods ;  the  genesis  and  history 
of  tithes  and  of  all  similar  phenomena  is  here  in  evi- 
dence. But  the  religion  that  was  working  its  way 
into  the  modern  mind,  through  the  mediaeval  Church, 
possessed  two  advantages  over  other  religions :  first, 
that  its  idea  of  God  was  an  intolerant  monotheism ; 
second,  that  the  Church,  being  separated  from  the 
State,  was  in  a  large  measure  free  from  entangling 
alliances  with  all  those  traditions  touching  property 
which  root  in  the  soil.  The  ideas  about  divine  do- 
minion had  therefore  a  clear  space  wherein  to  unfold 
their  tendency. 

The  idealizing  forces  of  society,  being  distinct  from 
and  even  outside  the  State,  spoke  with  freedom  and 
decision.  Conscience,  being  in  a  measure  outside 
government,  looked  upon  its  faults  with  eyes  un- 
clouded by  interest.  Hildebrand,  Puritan  and  Pope, 
who  "  carried  in  himself  the  conscience  of  the  Middle 
Ages," m  wrote :  "  Who  does  not  know  that  the 
authority  of  the  kings  and  nobles  of  the  State  comes 
from  the  fact  that  being  ignorant  of  God  and  given 
over  to  a  pride  and  lust  that  know  no  bounds,  they 
have,  through  the  help  of  the  prince  of  evil,  set  up  a 
claim  to  lord  it  over  their  equals,  that  is  to  say  man- 
kind, by  insolence,  robberies,  perfidy,  murders,  in  a 
word  nearly  every  sort  of  baseness  ?  "  125  Quinet 
observes  concerning  this  letter :  "  There  you  have, 
word  for  word,  the  expressions  which  the  Third 
Estate  made  use  of  in  its  first  glow,  in  1789,  and 
which  the  men  of  the  Mountain  made  use  of  later  as 
they  marched  to  assault  the  absolute  monarchy.  The 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  255 

terms  so  strikingly  resemble  each  other  that  one 
would  say  they  had  passed  literally  from  the  bulls  of 
the  eleventh  centiwy  into  the  soul  of  the  Convention. 
It  is  certain,  in  effect,  that  while  wishing  to  shatter 
lay  society  by  means  of  the  spiritual  society,  Gregory 
VII.  gave  to  the  world  the  first  revolutionary  shock." 
That  last  sentence  may  be  slightly  exaggerated. 
But  there  is  no  exaggeration  in  saying  that  he 
dreamed  of  a  civil  law  built  upon  the  absolute  moral 
law  of  the  Bible.  He  drove  home  the  idea  of  do- 
minion. The  earth  belongs  to  God.  The  authority 
of  the  mighty  worldlings  who  exalt  themselves  above 
their  equals  has  no  root  in  His  nature,  derives  no 
authority  from  His  will.  That  such  thought  is  not 
an  individual  hypothesis,  peculiar  to  a  man  who  had 
a  genius  for  reform,  but  is  rather  part  of  a  great  vein 
of  thought,  one  other  instance  is  enough  to  prove. 
Wycliffe  was  far  away  from  Hildebrand  in  his  esti- 
mate of  the  Church's  sovereignty,  for  he  taught  that 
the  papacy  should  be  stripped  of  the  temporal  power, 
and  the  State  be  supreme  within  its  province.  But 
his  underlying  thoughts,  like  Hildebrand's,  have  a 
mighty  Augustinian  bias.  He  makes  the  State  sover- 
eign ;  but  the  price  paid  is  that  the  ideal  of  an  abso- 
lute justice  is  admitted  into  political  debate.  The 
sovereignty  of  God  comes  close  to  human  authority  in 
all  its  forms.  All  dominion  is  founded  on  grace. 
And  while  it  is  hot  clear  what  Wycliffe  would  have 
done  with  this  doctrine  when  he  came  to  his  appli- 
cations, the  main  color  of  his  thought  is  quite  clear. 
His  politics  were  not  practical,  but  intensely  theologi- 
cal. The  conception  of  God  as  being  in  Himself  the 
absolute  right,  and  as  standing  towards  the  world  in 


256          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

the  relation  of  sole  owner  and  over-lord,  threw  a  dis- 
tinct shadow  upon  the  title-deeds  of  existing  society. 

Has  it  not  become  clear  that,  sorfar  as  theory  goes, 
nothing  but  a  thin  curtain  separated  the  existing 
State  from  the  ideal  of  an  absolute  and  uncompromis- 
ing justice  ?•  If  we  look  back  to  the  beginning  of 
the  Mediterranean  world,  we  shall  see  that  the  ideas 
which  are  one  day  to  mount  the  throne  in  sociology 
have  made  great  headway.  At  the  outset,  the  power 
of  secular  tradition  was  supported  by  interest  and 
religion  alike.  Now  it  has  lost  a  very  large  part  of 
its  religious  significance  and  its  spiritual  right.  The 
monastic  conscience  looks  at  it  askance. 

Having  considered  the  theory  of  individuality  and 
its  aesthetic,  we  are  now  to  notice  the  signs  that  her- 
alded the  reassertion  by  the  State  of  its  spiritual  dig- 
nity. This  political  new  birth  was  foreboded  when 
the  Church  was  urged  to  strip  herself  of  the  temporal 
power.  From  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  this 
demand  grew  steadily  stronger.  Joachim  of  Fiore, 
Dante,  Langland,  and  many  others  saw  in  the  tem- 
poral power  of  the  papacy  the  mortal  foe  of  Church 
reform.  The  long  struggle  between  the  papacy  and 
the  Empire  led  to  the  restatement  of  the  ancient 
doctrine  of  the  State,  free  from  its  infusion  of  reli- 
gion. Marsilius  of  Padua,  at  one  time  head  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  formulated  early  in  the  four- 
teenth century  a  theory  concerning  political  functions 
strikingly  like  Aristotle's.  Macchiavelli  rendered  the 
world  the  great  service  that  clear  thinking  always 
renders,  even  when  it  undertakes  to  sanctify  brutal- 
ity. His  conception  of  the  State  as  positive  from 
top  to  bottom,  as  wholly  human  in  its  scope  and  ten- 


vn  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  257 

dency,  and  as  wholly  sovereign  within  its  field  so 
that  the  Church  must  keep  her  hands  off,  precipi- 
tated speculation.  Henceforward  the  independence 
and  power  of  the  nation  was  to  be  and  end  in  itself. 

Hooker  gives  us  the  plainest  evidence  upon  this 
point.  His  opponents,  being  High-Church  Presby- 
terians, occupied  without  knowing  it  the  mediaeval 
ground,  and  so  denied  the  right  of  the  State  to  touch 
the  affairs  of  the  Church.  Hooker,  in  reply  to  them, 
invests  the  principle  of  nationality  with  a  spiritual 
meaning.  It  is  most  significant  that  he  takes  for  his 
text  Aristotle's  words :  "  The  State  came  into  being 
in  order  that  men  might  exist,  but  its  end  is  that  men 
may  live  nobly."  "A  gross  error  it  is  to  think  that 
regal  power  ought  to  serve  for  the  good  of  the  body 
and  not  of  the  soul ;  —  as  if  God  had  ordained  kings 
for  no  other  end  and  purpose  but  only  to  fat  up  men 
like  hogs  and  to  see  that  they  have  their  mast." 
And  "the  parliament  is  a  court  not  so  merely  tem- 
poral as  if  it  might  meddle  with  nothing  but  only 
leather  and  wool."  126  Plainly,  the  time  for  the  papal 
comparison  of  the  State  to  the  moon  and  the  Church 
to  the  sun  is  gone  by.  The  State  is  not  a  sub-lessee 
from  the  Church,  but  holds  direct  from  God  and  the 
sunshine. 

With  the  twofold  movement  called  on  its  religious 
side  the  Reformation,  on  its  secular  side  the  Renais- 
sance, the  connection  between  the  present  and  the 
immediate  past  was  broken.  This  breach  with  the 
past  was  a  radically  new  thing.  Because  of  it  the  les- 
son that  Freeman  labored  to  teach,  the  unity  of  his- 
tory, became  an  indispensable  lesson.  But  for  the 
vast  majority  of  mankind  the  belief  in  the  unity  of 


258  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

history  has  always  been  instinctive,  something  they 
had  no  need  to  learn,  so  much  a  matter  of  course 
that  it  was  never  even  thought  of.  In  a  normal 
state  of  things  the  stream  of  consciousness  flows  out 
of  the  past  into  the  present  without  a  ripple.  Greece 
was  the  only  land  where  in  antiquity  the  possibility 
of  a  clean  break  between  the  present  and  the  past, 
between  an  individual  and  his  traditions,  was  sug- 
gested. The  suggestion  however  came  to  no  serious 
results.  To  the  last,  the  solidarity  between  present 
and  past,  between  an  individual  and  his  traditions, 
was  asserted  in  terms  of  both  reason  and  religion. 

The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance  demanded 
that  the  individual  should  break  with  his  traditions. 
They  made  the  demand,  the  one  in  the  name  of  reli- 
gion, the  other  in  the  name  of  reason.  The  immedi- 
ate past  had  to  lose  its  authority.  A  remote  past  — 
the  Apostolic  Age,  or  the  Classic  Age  —  was  exalted 
as  the  sole  authority.  To  overleap  the  intervening 
centuries,  to  carry  out  the  programme,  — "  Back  to 
the  Bible,"  and  "Back  to  Greece  and  Rome,"-  — it 
was  necessary  that  the  individual  should  become  his 
own  man  in  a  sense  new  to  history.  He  broke  away 
from  institutions.  He  trampled  upon  traditions.  His 
centre  was  in  himself. 

When  this  liberated  individual  was  well  on  his 
career,  he  entrenched  himself  upon  two  positions. 
The  one  was  in  politics,  namely,  the  theory  of  the 
Social  Contract  already  spoken  of  at  length.  The 
other,  in  religion,  was  Deism.  Hereby  the  individual 
made  himself  his  own  authority  in  all  sacred  things. 
Dogmas  were  few  in  number  and  exceedingly  port- 
able. The  infallible  Church  became  a  church  of 


vii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  259 

one,  and  Tom  Paine  was  its  mouthpiece  when  he 
said,  "  My  mind  is  my  church." 

The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  the  individual, 
fashioned  by  the  combined  influences  of  the  Graeco- 
Roman  Empire  and  the  Bible,  drilled  in  the  Monas- 
tery, called  forth  from  the  Monastery  by  a  revival  of 
religion  and  culture  on  the  one  hand  and  by  the 
growing  power  of  the  State  on  the  other,  stood  free 
in  the  open  field  of  history.  The  abstract,  universal 
individual  confronted  the  individual  who  is  rooted 
in,  in  many  cases  bound  to,  the  soil.  The  individual 
idealized,  the  storehouse  of  rights  and  at  the  same 
time  the  asylum  of  authority,  stood  face  to  face  with 
the  real  individual  —  the  individual  who  is  exalted  or 
suppressed,  as  the  case  might  be,  by  the  accumulated 
capital  of  privilege  and  place.  The  two  came  to- 
gether with  full  shock. 

The  idealized  individual  canonized  himself  by  his 
doctrine  of  Nature.  "  As  early  as  the  beginning  of 
the  fourteenth  century,"  says  Sir  Henry  Maine,  "  the 
current  language  concerning  the  birth-state  of  man, 
though  visibly  intended  to  be  identical  with  that  of 
Ulpian  and  his  contemporaries,  has  assumed  an  al- 
together different  form  and  meaning.  The  preamble 
to  the  celebrated  ordinance  of  King  Louis  Hutin, 
enfranchising  the  serfs  of  the  royal  domains,  would 
have  sounded  strangely  to  Roman  ears.  '  Whereas, 
according  to  natural  law,  everybody  ought  to  be  made 
free.'  This  is  the  enunciation  not  of  a  legal  rule 
but  of  a  political  dogma.  Where  the  Roman  juris- 
consult had  written  ceqni  stint t  meaning  exactly  what 
he  said,  the  modern  civilian  (in  the  days  before  the 
French  Revolution)  wrote  '  all  men  are  equal '  in  the 


260  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

sense  of  'all  men  ought  to  be  equal.'"127  That 
"ought"  of  the  fourteenth  century  was  a  prophecy. 
Its  fulfilment  was  the  eighteenth  century's  doctrine 
of  Nature.  Nature  was  the  right  of  the  universal 
individual  writ  large,  the  high  ground  of  vantage, 
whence  he  charged  down  triumphantly  upon  political 
and  social  valuations  and  assessments. 

The  crusades  had  demonstrated  that  a  great  ideal- 
izing force  had  entered  Europe.  When  we  take  into 
account  their  characteristics  and  their  long  continu- 
ance, they  are  seen  to  be  unique.  The  wars  of  early 
Mohammedanism,  it  may  be,  are  nearest  to  them. 
But  the  preaching  that  stirred  and  braced  the 
Mohammedan  soldier  frankly  mingled  plunder  and 
piety  ;  and  had,  besides,  the  aid  of  a  heaven  that 
was  pictured  in  grossly  sensuous  colors.  From  such 
things  Peter  the  Hermit  and  St.  Bernard  were 
altogether  free.  A  great  bulk  of  selfish  motives  of 
various  sorts  no  doubt  went  a  crusading.  The  capt- 
ure of  Constantinople  is  conclusive  evidence.  Yet 
the  main  motive,  the  motive  that  started  the  wars 
and  for  the  most  part  sustained  them,  was  idealistic. 
Say  what  you  will  about  superstition,  yet,  after  all  is 
said,  the  way  Europe  lavished  men  and  measure  to 
-rescue  a  sepulchre  proved  that  the  Western  nations 
had  a  splendid  capacity  for  devotion  to  an  idea.  It 
is  evident  that  idealizing  forces  were  being  stored  up 
in  consciousness,  ready  to  give  ethical  form  to  the 
raw  material  which  the  world  presents. 

To  sum  up,  the  story  of  the  reformer's  conscience 
is  as  follows :  The  establishment  of  Christianity 
gave  to  men  the  thought  of  a  moral  goal  for  history. 
Europe  acquired  a  strong  dogmatic  equipment,  which 


vii  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  261 

drove  out  all  thought  of  fate,  leaving  no  place  in  the 
universe  for  any  permanent  force  that  was  not  in 
eager  sympathy  with  man's  well-being.  The  princi- 
ple of  individuality  was  registered  and  insured  in 
terms  of  the  eternal.  The  doctrine  of  freedom, 
involving  the  maximum  of  personal  and  social  respon- 
sibility and  activity,  was  guaranteed  by  the  concep- 
tion of  God  —  the  fundamental  life  —  as  creative 
will.  The  world  was  viewed  as  plastic  material  for 
the  will  to  handle.  The  potential  loomed  large  and 
threatening  before  the  actual.  The  thought  of  the 
divine  judgment  not  only  fixed  an  objective  point 
towards  which  society  should  be  guided  by  God,  but 
prescribed  a  duty  which  society  must  fulfil.  Here 
are  all  the  elements  that  go  to  the  making  of  con- 
science. It  needs  but  the  return  of  the  State  to  the 
stage  of  the  higher  life,  and  then  the  long  labor  of 
humanity  in  the  Occident  shall  see  its  harvest. 

When  the  State  becomes  strong,  the  imperial 
Church  loses  her  temporal  power.  When  the  State 
takes  upon  itself  the  education  of  its  people,  thus 
asserting  its  moral  dignity,  the  Church  loses  her 
monopoly  of  the  ideal  interests,  so  that  her  spiritual 
authority  is  impaired.  But  an  institution  never 
exercises  its  full  influence  until  it  is  decaying. 
While  the  visible  forms  of  the  Church  dominated 
the  world,  the  world  bowed  in  fear ;  yet  by  its  sub- 
jection it  bought  safety.  For  the  condition  upon 
which  the  imperial  dominion  of  the  Church  rested 
was  the  transcendent  view  of  the  universe, — con- 
science being  in  the  monastery.  When  the  mediaeval 
Church  was  dethroned,  the  concordat  between  con- 
science and  the  State  was  annulled.  Now  that  the 


262          GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE     CHAP,  vn 

monastic  Church  had  lost  credit,  and  the  monasteries 
were  either  weakened  or  destroyed,  the  desire  for 
absolute  justice,  which  found  rest  in  them,  was  driven 
forth  to  seek  a  new  home.  It  invaded  the  State. 
It  insinuated  itself  into  the  body  politic.  The  passion 
for  a  perfect  law  is  abroad.  God's  trumpet  sounds 
no  longer  from  the  clouds,  but  in  the  city  of  men. 
Ideal  Commonwealths,  like  Moore's  and  Campanella's, 
are  draughted.  The  reformer's  conscience  claims 
the  right  to  audit  the  books  of  society. 


VIII 

WE  have  seen  how  the  higher  forces  of  the  Medi- 
terranean world  went  into  partnership  to  create  a 
definition  of  man  that  should  take  in  the  downmost 
man.  The  definition,  when  achieved,  became  the 
mightiest  force  society  ever  organized  in  the  cam- 
paign against  caste ;  but  it  could  not  take  the  field 
forthwith.  The  long  opposition  between  a  great 
heathen  Empire  and  the  Catholic  Church  made  it 
impossible  for  the  State  to  appear  to  Christians  as  it 
appeared  to  Aristotle ;  it  could  not  acquire  any  first- 
hand spiritual  meaning.  Afterwards  the  fall  of  the 
Empire  permitted  the  Church  to  monopolize  the  work 
of  educating  those  idealizing  faculties  that  build  up 
for  man  his  house  eternal.  The  State,  such  as  it  was 
for  many  centuries,  could  not  have  satisfied  the  needs 
of  the  times  unless  it  had  been  intensely  military  and 
aristocratic.  On  the  political  side,  then,  the  new  defi- 
nition of  the  individual  —  a  definition  including  noth- 
ing that  was  not  .common  stock  —  found  no  entry. 
Moreover  the  definition  itself  did  not  seek  admittance 
into  the  political  order.  The  bent  of  theology,  the 
bias  of  imagination,  the  make  of  the  will  that  was 
fixed  in  its  love  of  holiness,  were  all  against  it.  The 
saving  necessities  of  history  bade  the  definition  keep 
within  the  bounds  of  the  monastery  and  the  monas- 

263 


264          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

ticized  clerical  life.  There,  however,  its  authority 
was  undisputed.  The  dogma  that  all  men  were  equal 
before  God,  that  is  to  say  in  relation  to  the  ideal  in- 
terests of  the  race,  took  entire  possession  of  conscious- 
ness. It  so  worked  itself  into  the  best  blood  of  Europe, 
that  reason  and  conscience  took  it  as  they  took  the 
sky  —  as  a  matter  of  course. 

A  concordat  was  agreed  on  between  the  lay  world 
and  the  monastic  world.  The  latter  specialized  saint- 
hood, localized  conscience,  and  claimed  absolute  domin- 
ion in  its  own  sphere.  The  former  gladly  recognized 
this  imperial  authority,  paid  tithes,  went  to  confession, 
pinned  its  hope  of  salvation  to  the  monastic  scheme ; 
and  all  the  while  went  about  the  pioneer  work  of  mak- 
ing a  government  as  if  the  idealizing  definition  of 
man  belonged  to  another  country.  Yet  it  lay  in  the 
nature  of  things  that  this  concordat  could  not  hold 
forever.  We  have  seen  at  the  very  heart  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  a  clear  prophecy  —  embodied  in  the  greatest 
of  the  popes  —  that  some  day  the  lay  world  shall  be 
cross-questioned  by  reason  and  conscience.  On  the 
edge  of  the  Middle  Ages  another  sign  caught  our  eye. 
Wat  Tyler's  song  —  "  When  Adam  delved  "  —  seemed 
to  demand  that  the  monastic  estimate  of  aristocracy 
should  be  translated  into  politics  and  in  words  of  one 
syllable  for  the  peasant  to  read. 

It  is  due  to  no  chance  connection  of  words  that 
Wat  Tyler's  doggerel  has  the  same  ring  as  the  "  Rights 
of  Man."  Tom  Paine  says :  "  Through  all  the  vo- 
cabulary of  Adam  there  is  not  such  an  animal  as  a 
duke  or  a  count."  128  The  war-cry  of  the  English 
peasant  in  the  fourteenth  century  and  the  political 
dogma  of  the  eighteenth-century  man  are  identical  in 


viii  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  265 

the  quality  of  their  thought.  In  the  field  of  govern- 
ment a  so-called  king  may  reign  without  ruling.  It 
is  impossible  in  the  field  of  ideas.  A  conception  that 
reigns  must  also  rule.  The  new  definition  of  man 
sat  on  the  throne  of  European  reason  and  conscience 
for  fifteen  hundred  years.  That  it  should  make  from 
time  to  time  onslaughts  upon  the  political  order  of 
things,  and  that  eventually  it  should  strike  it  with  all 
the  force  of  a  great  conviction,  was  inevitable. 

Again,  we  saw  that  the  period  between  the  break- 
up of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  eighteenth  century 
teemed  with  things  indicative  of  the  fact  that  the 
other  world  and  this  world  were  drawing  near  each 
other.  The  open  Bible  in  the  common  tongue  pro- 
claimed the  undoing  of  the  hierarchy.  The  dogma 
of  the  predestinarian  theology  took  the  sovereignty 
of  God  with  full  seriousness,  running  His  decrees 
from  end  to  end  of  human  life,  and  making  no  halt 
either  before  the  monastic  institutions  of  the  Church 
or  the  feudal  institutions  of  the  State.  Puritanism 
threw  open  to  the  monastic  conscience  a  free  career 
in  the  every-day  world.  Deism  equipped  the  laity 
with  a  few  portable  dogmas,  and  made  every  man  his 
own  theologian.  The  distinction  between  the  two 
worlds  was  no  longer  entrenched  and  fortified  within 
an  imperial  Church.  Both  worlds  were  now  at  close 
quarters  within  the  horizon  of  the  layman.  Being 
his  own  authority,  responsible  for  his  own  dogmas, 
and  formulating  his  own  bulls,  he  could  no  longer 
put  his  ideals  in  the  hands  of  a  monastic  guardian. 
They  must  fight  it  out  within  his  own  conscience. 

The  eighteenth  century  brought  this  movement  to 
a  head.  It  was  the  glacial  epoch  in  the  history  of 


266  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

dogmatic  theology.  Reason  was  all  in  all.  Noth- 
ing could  pass  muster  that  did  not  appeal  to  every- 
day experience  in  time  and  space.  Tradition  was 
cashiered,  the  past  ceased  to  be  venerated ;  so  that 
the  centre  of  spiritual  gravity  fell  within  the  present. 
Science  was  beginning  to  fascinate  the  common  mind. 
Franklin's  kite  drove  out  the  lives  of  the  saints.  The 
visible  world  was  becoming  immensely  attractive.  A 
new  field  was  being  thrown  open  to  the  imagination. 
The  earth  was  beginning  to  successfully  compete 
with  the  angels.  The  State  was  in  the  saddle.  Poli- 
tics were  altogether  positive.  The  suppression  of 
the  Jesuits  showed  to  how  low  a  pass  the  mediaeval 
view  of  the  universe  had  come.  When  Voltaire  said, 
"  Let  us  cultivate  our  garden,"  he  gave  the  signature 
of  the  period.  So  the  world  was  one,  and  the  one 
world  was  this  world.  Consciousness  was  single. 
The  will  was  undivided.  Here  at  last  is  a  field  upon 
which  the  new  definition  of  the  individual  may  de- 
ploy its  forces. 

Lewes,  in  his  introduction  to  Comte's  Philosophy 
of  the  sciences,  writes :  "It  is  one  of  our  noble  human 
instincts  that  we  cannot  feel  within  us  the  glory  and 
the  power  of  a  real  conviction  without  earnestly  striv- 
ing to  make  that  conviction  pass  into  other  minds." 129 
That  is  finely  said,  and  its  truth  is  the  text  for  this 
chapter.  The  new  definition  of  man,  containing  a 
new  conception  of  human  rights  and  duties,  had 
been  shaped  through  the  aid  of  a  theology  largely 
transcendent.  The  very  theology  without  which  it 
could  not  have  been  made  and  afterward  driven  into 
experience,  barred  against  it  the  door  into  secular 
sociology.  From  our  present  point  of  view  —  the 


viii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  267 

history  of  the  social  question  —  we  may  say  that  the 
means  to  the  end  for  a  long  time  kept  the  end  con- 
cealed. Not  until  the  theology  lost  its  hold,  could 
the  social  aim  of  the  whole  development  come  plainly 
into  view. 

Voltaire  was  the  typical  eighteenth-century  man. 
Morley  says  about  him  that  by  his  visit  to  England 
"  he  had  become  alive  to  the  central  truth  of  the  social 
destination  of  all  art  and  all  knowledge."  13°  This 
has  a  broader  scope  than  Morley  gives  it.  He  is 
commenting  on  Condorcet's  assertion,  that  the  exam- 
ple of  England  showed  Voltaire  that  truth  is  not  made 
to  remain  a  secret  in  the  hands  of  a  few  philosophers. 
Condorcet's  words  suggest  the  historical  bearings  of 
the  thought.  What  is  in  question  is  the  undoing  of 
the  distinction  between  esoteric  and  exoteric  truth, 
truth  as  it  is  for  the  few  and  truth  as  it  is  for  the 
many.  It  is  the  fundamental  law  of  our  intellectual 
life  that  whatever  is  really  in  the  mind  must  go  forth 
into  speech.  Without  speech  no  clear  reason.  This 
law  has  always  held  sway.  But  the  area  over  which 
it  has  ruled  has  greatly  differed  from  age  to  age.  In 
the  most  ancient  societies  whatever  truth  men  ac- 
counted vital,  they  kept  under  lock  and  key.  Hence 
truth  was  indeed  outspoken,  as  it  is  her  nature  to  be. 
But  it  was  not  for  the  mass  of  men  that  the  word 
was  winged.  As  far  as  they  were  concerned  the  word 
was  dead.  The  tribal  church  made  its  religion  a  pri- 
vate estate  behind  high  walls.  The  caste  system 
made  it  an  unpardonable  sin  to  tell  the  sacred  myste- 
ries to  men  outside  the  caste.  Even  Greek  philosophy 
shared  the  ancient  prejudice,  drawing  a  very  broad 
distinction  between  the  mass  of  people  and  the  school. 


268  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Monastical  Christianity,  while  it  was  altogether  catho- 
lic in  its  treatment  of  individuals,  gave  a  partial  recog- 
nition to  the  distinction  between  the  esoteric  and  the 
exoteric  ;  for  it  was  content  to  let  secular  society  build 
itself  on  half-truths,  so  long  as  the  pure  truth  con- 
cerning the  spiritual  and  social  constitution  of  human- 
ity held  perfect  sway  inside  monastic  bounds. 

The  eighteenth  century  put  an  end  to  this  partition 
of  truth.  Truth  is  single  and  belongs  equally  to  all. 
The  truth  about  the  rightful  constitution  of  humanity 
must  either  deny  itself,  or  speak  a  language  under- 
stood by  the  people.  It  is  noteworthy  that  Voltaire 
learned  this  lesson  in  England.  There  was  the  first 
free  State.  The  life  of  the  nation  had  come  within 
the  pale  of  things  that  are  sacred  by  their  own  right. 
Protestantism  had  made  the  capacity  of  the  common 
man  for  the  highest  mysteries  an  every-day  principle. 
The  Crown  controlled  the  Church.  At  the  same 
time  the  Crown  represented  a  self-governing  people. 
Hence  the  Crown's  control  of  matters  ecclesiastical 
stood  for  the  declaration  that  the  laity  were  now  come 
of  age  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Henceforth  the 
mediaeval  way  of  expressing  the  distinction  between 
those  who  rule  in  the  Church  and  those  whose  pri- 
mary duty  is  to  obey  is  to  pass  out  of  use. 

Speaking  in  the  lump,  this  means  that  a  Democracy 
like  the  free  communities  of  Greece  and  Rome  but 
on  a  vastly  broader  foundation  is  the  order  of  the 
day.  Now  the  fundamental  law  for  such  a  Democracy 
is  that  the  highest  truth  shall  be  published  in  terms 
of  common  consciousness.  The  last  great  step  in 
the  history  of  public  opinion  has  been  taken.  By 
public  opinion,  we  mean  the  opinion  that  governs  and 


vin  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          269 

guides  the  State,  the  opinion  that  has  the  right  of 
suffrage,  the  opinion  that  is  acknowledged  to  be  a 
rightful  source  of  criticism  upon  the  old  constitution 
and  of  change  in  the  direction  of  a  better  one.  It 
was  the  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  proclaim 
that  every  man  in  the  State  was  the  seat  of  this  au- 
thoritative opinion.  To  this  point  came  the  belief  in 
the  social  destination  of  all  art  and  all  science.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  world's  history  it  is  said  out  loud 
and  from  the  housetops  that  every  man,  no  matter 
what  his  birth  and  fortune,  is  by  divine  right  a  part 
of  the  governing  body.  And  it  is  said  with  the  ut- 
most confidence.  Every  other  view  is  turned  out  of 
doors  by  the  men  who  accept  this. 

The  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  now 
makes  its  maiden  speech  from  the  throne.  It  had 
been  long  preparing.  We  hear  it  whispered  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  during  the  contest  between  the 
friars  and  the  secular  clergy.131  Scholasticism,  using 
Aristotle's  Politics  as  a  text-book,  raised  it  to  the  level 
of  a  theory.  Thus  Aquinas,  discussing  the  ground 
of  political  obligation,  says  that  only  the  reason  of 
the  multitude,  in  a  prince  representing  the  multitude, 
can  make  a  law  that  actually  binds  because  it  ought 
to  bind.132  Furthermore,  even  as  the  friars,  seeking 
to  establish  the  right  of  a  man  to  choose  a  con- 
fessor who  served  him  better  than  the  parish  priest, 
appealed  to  popular  authority ;  so  did  the  defenders 
of  the  Empire  against  the  Papacy  appeal.  For  ex- 
ample, Marsilius  of  Padua  says :  All  citizens  should 
join  in  making  the  laws.133  In  his  theory  the  conjoint 
influence  of  Roman  law  and  the  Christian  conception 
of  the  soul  is  fully  apparent.  The  Jesuits,  seeking 


2/0          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

a  support  in  places  where  the  royal  authority  was 
against  them,  openly  occupied  the  ground  of  popular 
sovereignty.  In  one  form  or  another  the  same  doc- 
trine appeared  in  Hooker,  Hobbes,  Spinoza,  Grotius, 
and  Locke.  It  entered  the  field  of  practical  politics 
through  the  English  Independents.  Plainly,  it  was 
implicit  in  European  thought.  The  readiness  with 
which  it  found  voice  in  so  many  thinkers,  scattered 
over  a  broad  field  of  time  and  thinking  under  such 
widely  differing  conditions,  puts  that  beyond  doubt. 

Voltaire  went  to  England  to  learn  his  lesson.  He 
returned  to  France  to  teach  it.  France  was  the 
chosen  ground  for  the  publication  of  the  new  defini- 
tion of  the  individual.  A  long  process  had  prepared 
her  for  that  work.  The  central  feature  of  the  first 
period  in  modern  history  was  the  development  of 
the  absolute  monarchy.  In  France  alone  did  the 
logic  of  the  development  find  a  full  expression.  In 
Spain  religion  was  so  strong  and  pervasive  that  the 
State  as  an  end  in  itself  did  not  have  a  free  field. 
In  Germany  the  Empire  was  not  able  to  make  head 
against  the  feudal  establishments.  In  England  the 
alliance  of  nobles  and  people  set  up  a  barrier  which 
the  Crown  could  not  leap  over.  But  in  France  the 
monarchy  became  absolute,  an  end  in  itself.  The 
ground  was  cleared  of  aristocratic  freeholds.  Noth- 
ing could  withstand  the  tendency  to  centralization. 
The  feudal  system  was  cut  off  level  with  the  ground ; 
and  France  was  unified  to  a  pitch  far  above  any  con- 
temporaneous State. 

Two  things  resulted.  In  the  first  place  provincial 
politics  could  play  no  part.  We  Americans  often 
find  fault  with  the  existence  of  sectional  interests. 


vra  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 


2/1 


Yet  it  is  the  stubbornness  of  these  self-same  sectional 
interests  that  makes  political  theory  a  practical  sci- 
ence, a  liberal  rule  of  thumb.  When  such  interests 
are  either  wanting  altogether  or  have  no  local  au- 
thority to  entrench  themselves  in,  imperial  politics 
necessarily  result.  The  eye  is  bred  up  to  sweeping 
horizons.  The  mind  is  impatient  of  the  local,  and 
is  slow  to  pay  respect  to  provincial  objections.  When 
a  railroad  was  being  planned  in  Russia  back  in  the 
sixties,  the  engineers  and  capitalists  mapped  out  a 
somewhat  devious  course,  making  generous  conces- 
sions both  to  natural  difficulties  and  to  the  interests 
of  existing  cities  and  towns.  But  the  Czar,  we  are 
told,  drew  a  straight  line  on  the  map  and  said :  Let 
it  go  there !  This  illustrates  the  imperial  habit  of 
mind  in  political  theory. 

In  the  second  place,  the  Crown  being  all  in  all,  and 
the  whole  kingdom  being  mobilized  at  its  nod,  there 
grew  up  in  France  a  prodigious  confidence  in  the 
efficiency  of  any  and  every  law  that  emanated  from 
the  centre.  The  working  will  of  the  State  took  its 
own  authority  most  seriously.  It  was  not  drilled  at 
all  in  the  give-and-take  school  of  compromise.  The 
self-directing  power  of  society  embodied  in  the  King 
looked  upon  itself  as  unrestricted.  The  geographical 
expression  of  this  over-bearing  power  of  the  govern- 
ment was  the  position  of  the  capital.  Paris  had 
acquired  a  vast  preponderance  over  the  provinces. 
"  In  1789  it  was  already  France  itself."  134  Local  lib- 
erties had  been  killed  at  the  root.  Arthur  Young 
said  that  outside  the  capital  inertia  and  silence 
reigned.  But  in  Paris  itself  there  was  an  intensity  of 
feeling  and  life  that  no  city  of  Europe  could  match. 


2*72          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

Every  minute  produced  a  political  pamphlet.135  The 
thought  and  life  of  the  State  was  all  at  the  centre. 
Necessarily  the  law-making  power  had  a  prodigious 
opinion  of  its  own  ability  to  mould  society  by  decrees. 

The  sum  total  of  results  was  that  political  theory 
of  a  sweepingly  logical  type  had  free  play.  There 
was  no  sanctification  of  inconsequence  to  be  found 
here,  no  glorification  of  the  rule  of  thumb,  no  canoniz- 
ation of  compromise,  no  freedom  "  broadening  slowly 
down."  France  was  at  the  same  time  the  most  liter- 
ary nation  of  Europe.  And  the  literary  class,  after 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  became  the 
leaders  in  political  thinking.  Since  political  liberty 
had  long  since  died  out,  and  since  these  literary  theo- 
rists had  lived  far  away  from  practical  affairs,  they 
had  a  supreme  confidence  in  their  own  speculations.136 
Here  was  a  place  made  to  order  for  that  abstract 
definition  of  the  universal  individual  which  was  created 
by  the  establishment  of  Christianity  in  Europe. 

We  must  however  be  on  guard  against  our  own 
racial  conceit.  The  Anglo-Saxon  egotism  in  matters 
pertaining  to  government  is  nearly  enough  to  justify 
any  people  not  Anglo-Saxon  in  going  to  war  with  us. 
It  is  easy  for  us  to  conclude  that  France  was  France 
and  nothing  more ;  so  that  her  turning  loose  of  the 
universal  individual  to  work  his  will  on  institutions 
was  characteristic  enough,  but  not  widely  representa- 
tive. The  truth  is  on  the  other  side.  Hobbes 
showed  to  the  England  of  his  day  what  an  English- 
man could  do  with  the  tools  of  a  fearless  political 
logic,  when  circumstances  gave  him  a  strong  push  in 
that  direction.  The  constitution  draughted  by  Locke 
for  Carolina  revealed  another  great  Englishman's 


vni  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  273 

capacity  for  abstraction.  Burke,  speaking  of  Dr. 
Price's  Sermon,  —  the  sermon  that  gave  the  text  for 
his  "  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  "  — 
said :  "  It  is  a  strain  which  I  believe  has  not  been 
heard  in  this  kingdom  since  the  year  1648,  when 
a  predecessor  of  Dr.  Price,  the  Rev.  Hugh  Peters, 
made  the  vault  of  the  king's  own  chapel  at  St.  James' 
ring  with  the  honor  and  privilege  of  the  saints  who, 
with  the  high  praises  of  God  in  their  mouths  and  a 
two-edged  sword  in  their  hands,  were  to  execute 
judgment  on  the  heathen  and  punishments  upon 
the  people ;  to  bind  their  kings  with  chains  and 
their  nobles  with  fetters  of  iron."  137  Burke  at  that 
time  of  his  life  had  as  keen  a  scent  for  a  politi- 
cal heretic  as  any  man  needed  to  have.  He  was 
wholly  right  in  emphasizing  the  kinship  between  the 
"French"  ideas  and  the  radicals  of  the  Puritan 
Revolution.  Although  the  idea  of  God  counted  for 
everything  in  one  case  and  for  nothing  in  the  other, 
the  unit  of  thought  was  the  same, — the  individual 
man  denned  in  terms  of  the  eternal,  and  those 
divine  or  "  natural "  rights  which  cut  up  all  the  pre- 
rogatives of  human  precedent  by  the  root. 

No  American  needs  to  be  reminded  that  the 
"  French  "  ideas  exercised  a  vast  power  in  our  coun- 
try, although,  in  the  main,  they  were  not  "French" 
at  all,  but  of  home  growth.  The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, the  Bills  of  Rights  in  all  our  State  Con- 
stitutions, the  conception  of  "  reserved  rights  "  which 
is  the  political  background  to  every  one  of  them,  and 
many  another  thing,  prove  that  the  appetite  for 
universalistic  theory  in  politics  was  more  serious 
than  a  Parisian  fashion.  France  was  truly  represent- 


2/4  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

ative  of  a  tendency  fixed  deep  in  European  experi- 
ence. The  conception  of  public  law  in  its  relation 
to  the  common  individual's  rights,  which  there  broke 
forth  into  constitution  making,  was  not  a  local  epi- 
demic, but  a  deep-seated  symptom  of  universal 
history.138 

The  mental  characteristic  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  clearness.  Lanciani,  speaking  of  the  "  shame- 
ful restoration  "  of  churches  that  took  place  in  Rome 
during  that  century,  says :  "  The  system  followed 
was  everywhere  uniform.  The  columns  of  the 
nave  were  walled  up  and  concealed  in  thick  pilasters 
of  whitewashed  masonry ;  the  windows  were  en- 
larged out  of  all  proportion  so  that  floods  of  light 
might  enter  and  illuminate  every  remote,  peaceful 
recess  of  the  sacred  place." 139  This  was  typical. 
Nothing  was  to  be  held  rational  that  was  not  entirely 
intelligible.  Nothing  may  be  half-said.  There  are 
no  shades.  All  must  be  simple.  The  supreme 
authority  was  common  sense.  Nothing  must  be  left 
to  run  wild  outside  definition.  As  in  architecture, 
so  in  landscape  gardening.  Nature  delights  in  neat- 
ness and  precision  to  such  an  extent  that  she  nearly 
arrives  at  curl-papers. 

Everything  was  brought  to  the  bar  of  utility.  If 
this  had  meant  that  nothing  is  worth  while  unless  its 
results  can  be  quickly  reaped  in  time  and  space,  it 
would  have  been  a  wretched  substitute  for  the  medi- 
aeval view  of  the  world.  If  we  had  to  choose  be- 
tween the  doctrine  that  push-pin  is  as  good  as  poetry, 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  working  mediaeval  notion  of 
heaven  and  hell  on  the  other,  I  do  not  think  that  in 
the  end  we  should  find  any  difficulty  in  deciding. 


viii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          275 

True,  the  latter  is  utilitarian  as  well  as  the  former, 
although  it  is  other-worldly  utilitarianism.  Still,  in 
the  long  run  celestial  utility  would  turn  out  larger 
men  than  utility  of  the  terrestrial  sort.  The  distance 
we  have  travelled  from  the  brute  is  measured  by  our 
capacity  to  deliberately  give  up  the  present  for  the 
future.  Here,  too,  lies  the  superiority  of  the  civilized 
man  over  the  savage.  So  that  if  nothing  more  were 
at  stake  than  the  choice  between  two  kinds  of  utili- 
tarianism, it  would  be  wiser  to  choose  the  mediaeval 
view  with  its  whole  load  of  superstitions.  No  cause 
can  go  far  that  does  not  appeal  to  the  imagination, 
for  in  no  other  way  can  we  train  the  will.  The  saint 
who  never  washed  her  hands  for  twenty-five  years  is 
a  much  larger  contribution  to  civilization  than  push- 
pin, because  dirt  does  not  destroy  the  faculty  of 
dreaming. 

But  much  more  was  at  stake  than  such  a  choice. 
The  matter  in  debate,  although  the  first  contestants 
were  not  aware  of  it,  was  the  modern  form  of  Aris- 
totle's ideal  of  the  State.  The  nation's  right  to  be- 
come in  some  real  way  trustee  and  steward  for  the 
spiritual  interests  and  treasures  of  the  race  was  the  real 
point  in  issue.  The  doctrine  of  utility  was  an  awkward 
and  lumbering  form  of  expression.  Circumstances 
however  made  it  a  very  natural  form.  The  feeling 
was  that  the  attention  of  the  best  men  and  women  had 
been  too  long  exhausted  upon  the  next  life,  while  the 
affairs  of  this  life  were  left  to  people  of  second-rate 
goodness  and  intensity.  A  new  kind  of  master-passion 
is  called  for,  —  a  passion  for  public  improvements,  for 
the  common  betterment.  To  make  two  blades  of 
grass  grow  where  one  grew  before,  to  see  to  it  that 


276          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

"  there  is  more  food  for  all  men  and  better  food  for 
every  man,"  to  multiply  opportunities  for  self-devel- 
opment and  bring  them  within  the  reach  of  all  men, — 
that  is  the  broad  meaning  of  the  doctrine  of  utility. 
A  superb  social  enthusiasm  lurks  within  the  argu- 
ments for  bringing  all  existing  institutions  to  the  test 
of  present  use. 

The  secret  of  authority  was  forced  to  come  out  of 
its  hiding-place.  The  programme  of  utility,  consid- 
ered not  as  it  was  first  expressed  but  in  its  permanent 
bearings,  was  of  one  piece  with  the  dogma  of  popular 
sovereignty.  The  debate  between  the  law  that  is  of 
divine  authority  in  politics,  and  the  law  that  is  of 
human  authority,  has  ended  with  a  triumph  for  the 
latter.  Society  has  acquired  the  right  to  audit  the 
accounts  of  its  rulers.  It  was  the  work  of  Greece 
and  Rome  to  bring  to  the  light  an  ideal  of  law  as  made 
by  men  and  for  men.  The  eighteenth  century  dog- 
matized on  that  point.  No  law  shall  touch  the  people's 
business  that  is  not  prepared  to  render  a  full  account 
of  itself.  Authority  shall  no  longer  take  refuge  in 
mystery.  True  law  is  common  property. 

Imagination  now  changes  its  objective  point.  Its 
function  always  is  to  clothe  the  deep  and  permanent 
desires  of  humanity  with  a  body  of  faith,  and  to  give 
them  the  color  of  imperious  reality  by  assigning  them 
a  land  of  their  own  to  dwell  in,  where  nothing  with- 
stands their  sway.  Thus  did  Plato  cause  the  saving 
unities  of  reason  to  dwell  in  the  heaven  of  the  ideas. 
The  establishment  of  Christianity  in  Europe  gave  to 
the  spiritual  imagination  —  that  form  of  the  imagina- 
tion which  bodies  forth  the  longings  of  men  for  a 
good  that  is  both  eternal  and  universal  —  such  author- 


viii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  2/7 

ity  and  pervading  power  as  it  nowhere  else  in  history 
approached.  But  at  the  same  time  it  was  trained  to 
look  up  and  away  from  the  visible  order  of  things. 
When  the  mediaeval  view  of  the  world  broke  down 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  imagination  for  a  while  was 
at  a  loss.  There  seemed  at  first  to  be  no  material 
for  the  idealizing  faculty  to  go  to  work  upon.  It 
amuses  us  to-day  to  find  that  Voltaire  and  Volney 
would  fain  have  persuaded  the  fancy  of  Europe  to 
settle  in  China.  The  men  who  cried,  "  Cease  to 
admire  those  ancients,"  —  that  is,  Greeks,  Romans, 
Hebrews,  —  wished  their  contemporaries  to  turn  out 
their  longings  to  graze  in  the  pastures  of  the  Middle 
Kingdom.  Yet,  even  with  those  who  preached  the 
gospel  according  to  Pekin,  this  was  more  of  a  by-play 
than  a  main  interest.  China  was  a  fair  field  because 
it  was  far  away ;  and  some  object  there  must  be  for 
imagination  to  glorify,  now  that  the  other  world  had 
lost  vogue.  After  the  by-play  was  over,  imagination 
soon  found  its  true  bearings.  It  came  to  rest  upon 
the  future  of  human  society.  With  the  idea  of  God 
for  the  most  part  left  out,  the  Messianic  idea  took 
the  field ;  not  the  expectation  of  a  personal  Christ, 
but  the  prophecy  of  an  infinite  betterment  for  the 
men  whom  the  sun  shines  on. 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive; 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven.     Oh,  times  ! 
In  which  the  meagre,  stale,  forbidding  ways 
Of  custom,  law,  and  statute  took  at  once 
The  attraction  of  a  country  in  romance." 

The  visible  Church  temporarily  lost  her  significance. 
Theology  went  overboard  as  surplusage.  The 
dogma  of  the  unknowable  had  not  yet  come  on  the 


278  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

scene  to  bring  in  by  the  back  door  the  sense  of  the 
mysterious,  and  to  press  upon  the  mind  the  need  of 
bridling  the  conclusions  of  common  sense.  The 
apparatus  of  infallibility  had  been  discarded,  but  the 
habit  remained  in  full  strength.  The  lay  world  stood 
up  to  speak,  wholly  self-confident,  persuaded  that  it 
knew  its  own  mind  well  and  had  reason  and  con- 
science on  the  side  of  what  it  wanted.  The  story  to 
be  told  is  a  new  version  of  the  drama  of  the  soul,— 
the  soul  that  had  been  sounding  the  depths  of  hell 
in  every  man  and  scaling  the  heights  of  his  heaven. 

The  mediaeval  doctrine  of  heaven  had  proclaimed 
the  capacity  of  the  commonest  man  for  an  infinite 
happiness,  the  eternal  vision  of  the  perfect.  This 
capacity  for  happiness  did  not  carry  with  it  any  right 
to  happiness  so  long  as  the  soul  faced  towards  God, 
its  maker  and  monarch.  But  the  moment  it  faced 
towards  men  the  capacity  drew  after  it  the  right. 
The  soul,  the  priceless  something  in  every  man,  is,  so 
far  as  its  relation  to  all  social  forms  and  terrestrial 
politics  is  concerned,  endowed  with  an  absolute  right 
to  an  infinite  happiness.  Sacraments,  the  priesthood, 
the  monasteries,  the  open  Bible,  and  the  universal 
priesthood  of  Protestantism  found  their  sole  reason 
for  existence  in  the  work  of  authenticating  that  right 
by  putting  the  entire  being  and  authority  of  God  at 
its  back. 

This  fundamental  right  of  every  man  to  happiness 
held  wrapped  up  in  itself  a  searching  criticism  of 
government.  So  long  as  imagination  took  wing  into 
another  world,  the  criticism  did  not  need  to  unfold 
itself.  But  when  men  began  to  translate  the  brave 
dreams  of  old  into  the  language  of  utility,  the  revolu- 


vin  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          279 

tionary  power  of  this  programme  of  happiness  be- 
came apparent.  An  eulogy  delivered  on  Quesnay 
contains  these  words  :  "  Man  considered  in  his  state 
of  isolation,  anterior  to  all  society,  has  a  right  to  the 
things  that  concern  his  happiness.  .  .  .  This  right 
is  given  to  all ;  it  extends  itself  to  all ;  it  would  seem 
thereby  to  become  an  ideal  right."140  Our  own  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  is  in  this  self -same  key 
with  its  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

In  this  conception  of  happiness  as  the  birthright 
of  men  there  were  three  elements.  First,  the  indi- 
vidual as  such  was  made  intrinsically  superior  to  all 
forms  of  government.  There  is  no  longer  the  shadow 
of  a  notion  that  the  individual  exists  for  the  sake  of 
the  State.  The  individual  is  not  a  means  but  an 
end.  The  State,  stripped  of  the  divine  mysterious- 
ness  that  once  encompassed  kings,  is  thought  of  as 
ministering  to  his  well-being.  Second,  the  individual 
is  universal.  He  has  the  same  absolute  quality  in 
his  ideal  sovereignty  over  happiness  that  the  soul 
had  in  its  claim  upon  heaven.  Indeed,  this  indi- 
vidual is  the  soul,  fully  aware  however  of  the  body 
and  taking  it  seriously.  The  baron  could  not 
be  anymore  a  "soul"  than  the  serf.  There  is  no 
question  of  degrees  when  you  touch  the  absolute. 
So  there  cannot  be  any  talk  of  more  or  less  about  the 
individual.  Each  man  is  an  individual.  No  man  can 
be  more.  Thus  society  breaks  up,  under  the  hand  of 
political  theory,  into  a  vast  number  of  social  units,  each 
one  of  them  holding  in  fee  whatever  is  best  for  man. 

Third  and  mainly,  the  individual's  relation  to  the 
things  that  pertain  to  his  welfare  is  not  a  bare  pos- 
sibility that  may  come  to  something  somewhere  and 


280  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

some  day.  Nor  is  it  simply  an  inner  capacity  which 
may,  with  a  fair  field  and  no  favor,  develop  into  a 
positive  forth-putting  ability  and  a  resultant  command 
over  some  portion  of  Nature's  resources.  The  rela- 
tion is  one  of  ideal  or  absolute  right.  Now  right  is 
the  marrow  of  the  State.  The  State  derives  its  sta- 
bility from  the  reality  or  the  illusion  of  justice.  It 
has  no  power  to  permanently  bind  men's  wills,  to 
master  their  imagination,  and  to  levy  taxes  upon  their 
property  except  in  so  far  as  it  is,  or  is  thought  to  be, 
an  institution  of  right,  either  human  or  divine  or  both. 

When  therefore  the  right  to  happiness  is  granted 
to  the  universal  individual  in  fee,  the  State  is  in  effect 
put  under  the  heaviest  obligations — obligations  en- 
dorsed by  its  own  being  and  purpose  —  to  assist  the 
common  man  to  find  his  right.  It  matters  not  what 
the  method  of  the  State's  operation  may  be.  That 
will  differ  from  time  to  time.  Under  one  set  of  cir- 
cumstances, in  case  population  comes  nowhere  near 
pressing  upon  subsistence  and  Nature  fairly  riots  in 
elbow-room,  the  function  of  the  State  shall  be  to  let 
the  individual  alone,  to  have  as  little  government  as 
possible.  Under  a  different  set  of  circumstances  its 
function  shall  be  more  positive,  to  come  directly  to 
the  aid  of  the  individual  by  one  or  another  law 
designed  to  bring  his  happiness  within  his  view  and 
put  it  under  his  command.  But  however  the  method 
may  change,  the  principle  abides.  The  individual  has 
an  inherent  right  to  happiness.  It  is  the  business  of 
the  State  to  guarantee  the  right. 

The  idea  of  immortality,  the  idea  that  had  been 
made  the  ABC  of  a  man's  knowledge  about  him- 
self, the  conception  that  there  is  in  every  man  some- 


VIH  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  281 

thing  beyond  all  market  price,  has  at  last  entered 
the  province  of  law.  Plainly  the  State  must  enlarge 
the  area  of  rights  in  order  to  preserve  itself. 

A  new  kind  of  idealism  appears,  an  idealizing 
materialism.  To  find  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  in  the  mind  of  Helvetius  is  a  surprise  in- 
deed. One  half  of  him  is  radical  sensationalism,  the 
other  half  is  a  free  translation  of  the  Messianic  idea. 
The  explanation  of  so  amazing  a  union  is  that  the 
moral  genius  of  Occidental  Christianity  has  broken 
away  from  its  dogmatic  system  and  is  wandering 
afield,  seeking  a  new  home.  "  What  shall  the  hon- 
est man  do  in  my  closet?"  —one  part  of  Helvetius 
might  fairly  say  of  the  other.  As  soon  make  a 
Stradivarius  out  of  a  lath  as  make  a  prophet  out 
of  sensationalism.  But  when  the  old  home  is  aban- 
doned, there  must  needs  be  some  strange  experiments 
in  housekeeping  before  ideas  betake  themselves  to 
the  places  consistency  assigns  them.  And  the  exist- 
ence of  such  confusion  is  in  itself  a  striking  witness 
to  the  presence  in  Europe  of  a  mighty  idealizing  force. 

The  earth  is  to  be  the  battle-field  of  the  new  ideal. 
In  the  eulogy  upon  Quesnay,  already  referred  to,  it 
is  said :  "  The  earth  is  the  common  source  of  all 
goods.  To  her  applies  the  inscription  on  the  statue 
of  Isis :  I  am  all  that  has  been,  all  that  is,  and  all 
that  shall  be ;  and  no  one  has  yet  lifted  the  veil  that 
hides  me":141  allowing  for  rhetoric  and  for  pagan 
coloring,  this  is  in  the  same  vein  with  Wordsworth's 

"  Not  in  Utopia,  —  subterranean  fields,  — 
Or  some  secreted  island,  Heaven  knows  where. 
But  in  the  very  world,  which  is  the  world 
Of  all  of  us." 


282  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Evidently  the  ideas  that  had  commanded  the  spirits 
of  humanity  must  cease  to  climb  mountains  in  order 
to  borrow  wings  from  the  angels,  and  must  be  con- 
tent, yea,  glad  to  have  nothing  but  hands.  The 
social  question  could  not  be  asked  in  the  days  of 
the  Fathers,  for  then  every  vital  question  was 
straightway  appealed  to  the  other  world.  But  now 
it  must  be  asked.  There  is  to  be  a  new  crusade. 
The  holy  land  to  be  redeemed  is  under  the  feet  of 
the  peasant  and  day-laborer.  Conscience  must  enter 
politics  and  conquer  the  earth. 

Optimism  is  in  the  air.  The  genius  of  the  most 
dogmatic  of  all  religions,  the  most  aggressively 
hopeful  of  all  religions,  speaks  through  the  mouths 
of  radicals  and  revolutionists.  Condorcet's  Progrh 
de  V Esprit  Humaine  has  the  look  of  being  scien- 
tific and  historical,  a  real  review  either  of  actual 
progress,  or  of  progress  in  sight.  The  look  is  sin- 
cere. And  yet,  none  the  less,  we  are  dealing  with 
a  creed,  not  mainly  with  science.  We  are  listening 
to  a  chorus,  and  we  recognize  in  that  chorus  the  voice 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel,  although  they  sing  under 
another  name.  The  science  and  history  which  Con- 
dorcet  marshals  in  evidence  are  not  so  much  solid 
facts  as  symbols.  To  the  deep-hearted  lover,  who 
by  the  grace  of  his  passion  discovers  perfection  in 
the  one  he  loves,  every  slightest  suggestion  of  a 
virtue  has  an  interior  that  looks  out  upon  the  infinite; 
even  as  a  bit  of  white  cloud,  on  a  day  in  summer 
when  the  northwest  wind  is  blowing,  claims  the 
whole  spread  of  the  sky  for  its  own.  ,  To  Condorcet, 
the  deep-hearted  lover  of  humanity,  the  dogmatic 
believer  in  progress,  every  slightest  achievement  of 


viii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  283 

his  time  opens  into  the  prospect  of  a  social  paradise. 
The  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  passed  into 
the  blood  of  Europe. 

The  new  creed  has  the  militant  certitude  of  the 
old.  "  Outside  the  Church  there  is  no  salvation," 
the  Church  had  taught  men.  And  the  democratic 
interpretation  of  society  is  intolerant  of  every  other 
interpretation.  Like  all  intensely  dogmatic  views 
of  right  and  duty,  it  is  unable  to  put  up  with  the 
thought  of  limits  and  qualifications.  While  utility 
is  the  aim,  it  is  utility  as  a  goal,  not  as  a  method. 
The  temper  required  of  men  who  seek  the  goal  is 
enthusiasm  for  humanity,  absolute  devotion  to  the 
welfare  of  society.  Less  than  the  whole  heart  is 
treason.  Thus  the  search  for  utility  is  in  effect  a 
religion. 

This  ideal  of  human  perfectibility  and  happiness  is 
the  pith  of  the  great  word  "  Nature."  The  reformers 
of  the  eighteenth  century  believed  they  had  found  the 
elemental  man.  Like  the  "  soul,"  he  is  an  immutable 
quantity,  taking  no  color  deeper  than  the  skin  from 
differences  of  time  and  place  and  political  constitu- 
tion. The  elemental  man  is  the  one  ethical  reality, 
all  else  being  mere  millinery  and  fashion.  And 
"  Nature  "  is  his  claim  on  the  Universe,  written  large. 
Like  the  Biblical  idea  of  God,  it  shuts  out  Fate. 
Nowhere  within  its  precincts  is  to  be  found  any- 
thing that  may  not  some  day  be  capitalized  for  the 
benefit  of  the  unprivileged.  Where  Fate  begins, 
right  ends.  Fate  is  the  denial  of  human  rights  in 
the  universe ;  or,  at  best,  the  rights  it  tolerates  are 
sleepy  and  inefficient.  Fate  is  also  the  denial  of 
duty.  It  disables  the  reformer's  conscience;  for 


284  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

• 

unless  his  imagination  has  free  range  over  a  given 
field,  unless  it  invites  his  plough  by  promise  of  har- 
vest, his  duty  stops  at  its  boundary. 

"  Nature  "  means  that  all  the  resources  of  the  visible 
world  are  thrown  open  to  conscience.  The  world  lies 
plastic  under  the  hand  of  the  ideal.  Hence  "  Nature  " 
involves  the  reformer's  duty.  His  imagination  has 
free  range.  The  possible  gathers  in  resistless  force 
on  the  frontiers  of  the  actual.  The  present  social 
good  loses  its  aspect  of  authoritative  finality.  The 
present  has  no  dignity  unless  it  contributes  to  a 
richer  future.  So  conscience  must  needs  take  the 
field.  Infinite  possibilities  draw  after  them  infinite 
duties.  The  common  man's  opportunity  is  as  broad 
as  "  Nature."  The  obligation  of  the  political  mission- 
ary has  a  corresponding  scope. 

"  Nature "  provides  both  the  authority  for  social 
change  and  the  ways  and  means  of  change.  Like 
the  idea  of  God,  it  excludes  the  possibility  of  any 
fixed  limit  to  the  possibilities  of  betterment.  Unlike 
it,  however,  it  calls  for  a  kind  of  betterment  that 
shall  be  wrought  out  altogether  in  the  open  day  of 
history.  And  so  it  comes  about  that  the  reformer's 
conscience,  deriving  its  uncompromising  intensity 
from  a  Christian  ancestry,  musters  itself  into  the 
service  of  the  elemental  man. 

If  we  look  back  from  Rousseau's  Autobiography 
to  Plutarch's  men,  we  shall  see  how  the  centre  of 
gravity  has  shifted.  The  Port-Royal  Logic  says  of 
Montaigne,  "  He  speaks  of  his  vices  in  order  that  they 
may  be  known,  not  that  they  may  be  detested."142 
Whether  this  is  altogether  just  or  not,  it  is  certain 
that  Montaigne's  interest  in  himself  heralds  the 


viir  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          285 

entrance  into  literature  of  a  deepened  sense  of  indi- 
viduality. Paulsen  truly  says  about  Rousseau  that 
he  loved  his  own  sins  because  they  fed  his  inter- 
est in  himself. 143  The  results  of  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity  are  now  in  plain  sight;  for 
"the  soul  has  become  the  seat  of  wonder."144 
Through  eighteen  centuries  the  inner  life  of  the 
common  man  had  been,  by  the  consent  of  all  Chris- 
tians, the  central  phenomenon  in  the  universe.  Con- 
sequently individuality  as  such  has  become  the 
standard  of  value.  To  become  an  individual  is  the 
right  of  every  man.  Formerly  eternity  was  his 
opportunity.  There  he  worked  out  his  right.  But 
now  time,  is  his  opportunity.  It  is  his  right  to  be- 
come an  individual  and  to  count  for  one.  To  help 
him  to  his  right  is  the  supreme  obligation  of  society. 
And  in  order  to  insure  sucess,  humanity  withdraws 
a  large  part  of  its  capital  from  the  keeping  of  the 
Church  and  invests  it  in  the  State. 

The  popular  doctrine  of  liberty  has  just  this  at 
heart.  The  man  at  the  bottom,  the  "  mudsill,"  is 
believed  to  have  vast  powers  in  him  that  have  been 
hitherto  unused.  He  has  his  fortune  still  to  make, 
and  it  is  affirmed  that  he  could  make  it  with  little 
difficulty,  if  only  institutions  were  to  lend  him  a 
strong,  helping  hand.  Universal  suffrage  necessarily 
becomes  the  ideal.  Inasmuch  as  the  principle  of 
individuality  is  now  the  ruling  idea,  and  because  the 
new  social  creed  affirms  individuality  to  be  the  pre- 
rogative of  every  man,  the  right  to  the  suffrage 
becomes  an  inherent  right :  it  may  not  be  denied 
without  injustice.  A  society  that  refuses  to  provide 
the  lowest  man  with  the  opportunity  for  self-develop- 


286  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

ment  and  turns  him  into  a  thing,  a  means  to  another's 
self-development,  is  "a  compact  with  hell." 

Every  man  must  count  for  one.  Law  has  no 
sanctity,  carries  no  authority  above  that  of  the  fist 
or  the  club,  unless  it  is  from  this  belief  that  it  draws 
its  inspiration.  One  or  another  ground  of  expediency 
may  be  discovered,  whereupon  conservatism  may  take 
its  stand  and  contend  for  the  necessity  of  moving 
slowly.  But  by  its  own  confession  .this  conservatism 
is  of  a  new  kind.  Divine  right  is  not  now  the  monop- 
oly of  kings  and  aristocrats.  All  men  have  divine 
right,  the  right  to  be  or  become  individual.  The  old 
conservatism  denied  this  right.  The  new  conserva- 
tism frankly  concedes  the  right  in  theory,  but  urges 
caution  in  the  application.  Its  standing-ground  is 
expediency  and  expediency  alone.  The  one  sacred 
thing  in  society  is  the  right  to  individuality ;  and  that 
entails  the  conclusion  that  no  State  has  any  claim 
upon  human  reverence,  if  its  sole  or  even  its  main 
end  is  to  insure  existing  rights.  The  modern  free 
State  exists  in  order  that  the  area  of  highest  privilege 
may  be  as  broad  as  humanity,  in  order  that  all  men 
may  live  nobly.  Any  other  bottom  for  political  theory 
is  a  false  bottom. 

When  the  principle  of  individuality  is  set  up  as 
sovereign,  the  programme  of  universal  education  fol- 
lows at  its  heels.  If  the  lowest  classes  possess  great 
but  unused  powers,  society  must  see  to  it  that  those 
powers  come  into  play.  The  dogma  of  "  Nature " 
publishes  as  a  saving  truth  the  conviction  that  the 
visible  world  is  willing  and  eager  to  be  capitalized  to 
the  end  that  humanity  may  be  perfected.  Nowhere 
is  there  to  be  found  —  according  to  the  eighteenth- 


vni  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  287 

century  optimism  —  a  stone  in  the  stomach.  There 
is  nothing  that  can  permanently  resist  translation 
into  terms  of  social  betterment.  The  theory  of  con- 
tract strips  the  past  of  its  false  sacredness,  and  para- 
lyzes the  right  arm  of  false  privilege.  The  present  is 
emancipated,  enabled  to  take  its  own  desires  seriously. 
Imagination,  glorifying  the  future,  delivers  experi- 
ments in  social  structure  from  their  chief  terror ; 
society  is  no  longer  to  be  kept  from  taking  risks, 
when  men  are  assured  that  a  great  fortune  lies  some- 
where ahead.  And  the  concept  of  evolution.  —  in 
the  background,  but  with  one  foot  lifted  —  will  soon 
bless  the  principle  of  progress  in  the  name  of  the 
universe. 

This  is  the  company  in  which  the  dogmatic  belief 
in  universal  education  finds  itself.  Seen  in  that  light 
it  is  as  intelligible  and  also  as  necessary  as  the  unity 
of  God. 

It  is  often  said  that  the  prime  fault  in  the  pre- 
Christian  theory  of  education  was  that  it  subordinated 
the  individual  to  the  State.  Beyond  doubt  there  is  a 
valuable  truth  in  this,  but  it  is  imperfectly  stated.  In 
one  way  or  another  every  society,  that  is  really  or- 
ganized and  self-directed,  must  subordinate  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  interest  of  the  State ;  because  the 
ultimate  law  is  the  well-being  of  the  whole,  and  in 
case  of  collision  the  interest  of  the  individual  must 
yield  the  right  of  way.  A  better  expression  of  the 
truth  is  to  say  that  the  pre-Christian  theory  of  educa- 
tion narrowed  the  area  of  cultivation.  In  the  first 
place,  its  frontiers  were  those  of  the  inherited  social 
structure,  so  that  it  was  inherently  aristocratic.  In 
the  second  place,  and  as  an  inevitable  consequence  of 


288  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

this  first  fault,  the  field  of  experience  within  the  privi- 
leged individual  was  also  narrowed ;  for,  in  that  he 
had  no  sacred  relationship  with  large  masses  of  men 
within  his  own  State,  to  say  nothing  of  the  main  bulk 
of  the  race  outside  his  State,  priceless  portions  of  his 
own  being  must  needs  remain  an  undiscovered  coun- 
try. It  takes  the  whole  race  to  explain  a  single  man. 
In  proportion  as  the  horizon  of  social  theory  is  pro- 
vincial, is  the  breadth  and  depth  of  individuality  un- 
explored. 

When  we  say  that  the  modern  theory  of  education 
looks  to  the  individual  as  an  end  in  himself,  does  not 
suppress  him  for  the  sake  of  the  State,  what  we 
mean  is  that  the  individual  before  our  minds  is  the 
universal  individual,  the  inner  man  of  every  man. 
And  this  leads  us  on  to  assert  that  the  existing  State 
and  society,  because  they  are  far  from  being  coter- 
minous with  the  field  of  individuality  thus  viewed, 
have  no  intrinsic  sacredness,  but  derive  their  title  to 
respect  from  the  services  they  render  to  the  universal 
man.  Thus  it  is  only  in  appearance  that  we  find 
ourselves  at  the  antipodes  of  the  ancient  theory. 
We  do  not  in  effect  subordinate  society  to  the  indi- 
vidual. In  reality  the  logical  relation  between  the 
whole  and  the  part  is  ever  the  same.  It  is  the  con- 
tent and  scope  of  the  whole  and  the  depth  and  reach 
of  the  part  that  change.  No  sane  theory  of  politics 
can  recognize  the  individual  as  a  naked  individual. 
And  no  system  of  education  that  is  truly  ethical  can 
teach  self-culture  for  the  sake  of  the  self.  If  universal 
education  taught  that,  it  would  be  immoral.  What 
is  actually  meant  is  that  the  democratic  ideal,  as  a 
working  social  hypothesis,  can  hold  its  ground  before 


vin  GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  289 

reason  and  conscience  only  so  long  as  we  are  con- 
vinced that  a  real  citizen  is  hidden  within  every  man ; 
and  that,  unless  he  is  brought  to  the  light,  the  State 
is  just  so  far  impoverished. 

Nowadays  we  have  outgrown  our  calf  love  for  uni- 
versal education,  and  some  of  us  pick  flaws  in  the 
theory.  To  do  that  is  very  easy,  if  we  force  the 
theory  to  bring  its  corn  to  market  in  the  green  ear, 
judging  it  wholly  by  its  present  results.  But  to  spend 
time  in  such  fault-finding  is  to  forget  what  the  enthu- 
siasm for  the  enlightenment  of  the  people  sprang  from, 
and  what  it  stands  for.  It  was  born  of  the  belief 
that  all  the  social  structures  of  the  past  were  narrow 
and  incommodious ;  and  that  law  must  broaden  down 
until  its  rights  are  at  every  door.  It  stands  for  the 
conviction  that  permanent  right  is  built  upon  capac- 
ity; that  there  is  some  capacity  in  every  human 
being;  and  that  steady,  reverent  attention  can  find 
it  and  bring  it  to  the  light.  And  it  dogmatically 
affirms  that  any  sort  of  culture  that  refuses  to  seek 
entrance  into  the  common  life  is  an  unholy  thing. 

If  we  wish  to  see  how  deep-set  in  history  is  the  new 
definition  of  individual  and  how  far-going  is  the 
advance  from  antiquity,  I  do  not  know  a  better  way  to 
set  about  it  than  to  put  alongside  each  other  the  two 
men  of  the  eighteenth  century  who  make  epochs  in 
sociology  and  philosophy  —  Rousseau  and  Kant.  In 
build  and  temperament  no  two  men  could  be  farther 
apart.  The  one  was  a  man  of  the  most  highly  colored 
feeling,  the  other  a  man  of  the  most  dispassioned  rea- 
son. Rousseau  appears  as  one  born  to  be  the  prey  of 
chance,  with  no  steersman  save  the  very  winds  that 
blew  him  now  this  way,  now  that.  Kant,  on  the  con- 


290          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

trary,  was  an  almost  perfect  example  of  self-master- 
hood.  Nothing  in  his  life  was  left  to  chance.  His 
habits  were  so  methodical  that,  according  to  Heine, 
the"  good  people  of  Konigsberg  set  their  watches 
when  he  took  his  daily  walk.  Between  two  such 
men  as  Kant  and  Rousseau  all  is  contrast.  The 
more  striking  then  is  the  outcome  of  the  comparison 
between  them,  in  case  it  turns  out  that  the  main 
motive  of  both  is  the  new  definition  of  the  universal 
individual. 

Rousseau  once  wrote,  "The  man  who  reflects  is  an 
animal  depraved."  He  drew  the  words  from  the 
depth  of  his  own  nature.  Hume  said,  concerning 
him :  "  He  has  only  felt  during  the  whole  course  of 
his  life,  and  in  this  respect  his  sensibility  rises  to  a 
pitch  beyond  what  I  have  seen  any  example  of."  145 
The  base  of  his  being  was  an  almost  abnormal 
sensuousness.  He  was  sunk  in  emotion.  For  the 
objective  order  of  things  he  had  short  perception. 
The  only  world  that  was  real  to  him  was  his  inner 
world.  He  was  not  able  to  find  himself  in  history. 
Philosophy  he  well-nigh  hated.  He  excommunicated 
the  analytic  reason.  So  he  brought  into  psychology 
an  element  it  had  lacked  in  the  days  of  the  Greeks, 
and  ever  after.  He  made  feeling  central  and  sov- 
ereign. 

Now  it  is  characteristic  of  feeling  that  it  creates 
its  own  world.  It  enters  into  no  entangling  alliances 
with  facts.  The  fixed  order  of  things  lies  as  a  help- 
less captive  beneath  its  hand.  To  unchecked  feeling 
"there  is  nothing  beautiful,  except  what  does  not 
exist."146  Rousseau  says:  "The  impossibility  of 
reaching  to  the  real  being  plunged  me  into  the  land 


vni  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          291 

of  chimera;  and  seeing  nothing  that  rose  to  the 
height  of  my  delirium,  I  nourished  it  in  an  ideal 
world  which  my  creative  imagination  had  soon  peo- 
pled with  beings  after  my  heart's  desire.  In  my  con- 
tinual ecstasies,  I  made  myself  drunk  with  torrents 
of  the  most  delicious  sentiments  that  ever  entered 
the  heart  of  man.  Forgetting  absolutely  the  whole 
human  race,  I  invented  for  myself  societies  of  perfect 
creatures." 14T 

Another  main  characteristic  of  feeling,  when  it  is 
supreme  and  rules  the  understanding,  is  that  it  takes 
itself  as  infallible.  The  rubs  and  jars  of  the  unyield- 
ing outer  order  of  things  are  abhorrent  to  it.  There- 
fore it  makes  an  inner  world  where  the  necessity  of 
compromise  is  unknown.  And  inasmuch  as  its  very 
nature  leads  it  to  love  immediateness  of  intuition,  and 
to  hate  the  slowfootedness  and  halfwayness  of  reflec- 
tion, it  dominates  its  inner  world  with  absolute  certi- 
tude. Feeling  can  find  but  the  scantiest  grazing  in 
the  field  of  probabilities.  A  probability  fused  with 
feeling,  and  worked  over  a  few  times,  becomes  a  cer- 
tainty. Hence  the  thinker  who,  like  Rousseau,  puts 
feeling  on  the  throne,  will  possess  the  infallibility  of 
the  mediaeval  Church,  with  the  hot  blood  of  imperi- 
ous sensation  in  it. 

Such  a  being  was  just  the  man  to  carry  the  mo- 
nastic definition  of  the  individual  to  the  full  length 
of  its  principle.  So  far  as  theory  goes,  Rousseau  at 
this  point  finds  himself  in  the  company  of  all  the 
writers  on  Politics,  between  1400  and  1800  A.D.  He 
is  with  Marsilius,  Bodin,  Hooker,  Spinoza,  Grotius, 
Hobbes,  and  Locke.  They  all  started  with  the  same 
premises.  Not  one  of  them  was  able  to  make  any 


292          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

consistent  use  of  Aristotle's  idea,  that  sociability  is  as 
deep  in  man  as  individuality.  The  naked  individual 
comes  first  on  the  stage  in  all  their  theories ;  and 
then,  under  the  theorist's  eye,  he  proceeds  to  make 
clothes  for  himself,  now  after  one  fashion,  and  now 
after  another,  —  calling  them  society.  Rousseau, 
therefore,  was  in  this  matter  thoroughly  representa- 
tive of  what  had  been  worked  into  the  mind  of  Eu- 
rope. But  every  theorist  before  him  had  made 
qualifications  and  compromises ;  for  the  virgin  specu- 
lations of  the  closet  married  the  working  necessities 
of  a  world,  whose  chief  business  was  to  go  on  exist- 
ing. Rousseau,  on  the  contrary,  married  the  pure 
theory  to  his  own  impassioned  feeling.  The  result 
was  that  the  individual,  conceived  as  absolute  and 
final,  stood  out  in  history,  for  the  first  time,  like  a 
great  dramatic  creation,  —  not  an  abstraction,  but  a 
person. 

Consequently  in  Rousseau  the  idea  of  the  Social 
Contract,  which  had  been  so  long  in  growth,  reached 
its  final  stage.  Schiller  said  that  Rousseau  converted 
Christians  into  human  beings.  The  truth  of  the  say- 
ing is  that  he  converted  the  monastic  soul  into  a 
citizen.  The  life  of  humanity  in  time  and  space  was 
his  field  of  operation.  He  frankly  and  fully  accepted 
Hobbes'  conception  of  the  State  as  supreme  over  the 
Church.  And  the  soul,  becoming  a  citizen,  yet  con- 
tinuing to  be  what  the  monastic  soul  had  been,  the 
seat  and  source  of  all  abiding  values,  goes  to  work 
upon  the  theory  of  the  State  with  the  idea  of  the 
Social  Contract  as  its  tool.  The  existing  social  con- 
stitution has  no  sacredness  in  the  eyes  of  the  soul- 
citizen.  He  thinks  about  it  just  as  the  monk  thought. 


vin  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  293 

But  the  mighty  change  is  that  his  thought  is  not  at 
long  range.  It  speaks  from  the  heart  of  lay  society. 
All  the  differences  between  classes  of  men  shrivel  up 
in  the  heat  of  the  absolute.  All  that  the  king  and 
the  aristocrat  hold  most  dear,  —  a  large  part  even  of 
what  a  wise  lover  of  humanity  might  desire  to  have 
changed  very  slowly,  —  disappears  before  this  fierce 
logic.  Rousseau  holds  it  to  be  "  indispensable  to 
begin  by  making  a  clean  surface  and  by  throwing 
aside  all  the  old  materials."  148 

Rousseau's  theory  was  less  a  theory  than  a  religion. 
It  put  the  red  blood  of  poetry  into  the  authority  of  a 
dogma.  And  his  religion  exhausted  itself  in  enthu- 
siasm for  the  common  man.  He  "  made  the  poor 
very  proud."  Whatever  one  may  think  of  his  per- 
sonal character,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  a  very 
real  sense  he  was  in  spiritual  communion  with  the 
prophets  of  Israel  concerning  this  matter.  For 
"  Israel  first  gave  form  to  the  cry  of  the  people,  to 
the  plaint  of  the  poor."  149  The  demand  for  an  abso- 
lute justice,  for  an  altogether  ideal  society,  was  made 
mainly,  almost  wholly,  in  the  interest  of  the  unprivi- 
leged. We  all  know  Bruyere's  terrible  picture  "of 
certain  wild  animals,  male  and  female,  scattered  over 
the  fields,  black,  livid,  all  burnt  by  the  sun,  bound  to 
the  earth,  which  they  dig  and  work  with  unconquer- 
able pertinacity ;  they  have  a  sort  of  articulate  voice, 
and  when  they  rise  on  their  feet,  they  show  a  human 
face,  and  are  in  fact  men."  It  was  in  the  cause  of 
these  people  that  Rousseau  dreamed  his  impassioned 
day-dream  of  social  perfection.  Voltaire  said  of 
Montesquieu  that  humanity  had  lost  its  title-deeds, 
and  he  had  recovered  them.  In  a  deeper  sense  that 


294          GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

might  have  been  said  about  Rousseau.  The  Roman 
jurists  had  affirmed  that  man  is  born  free.  Their 
proposition  has  now  travelled  a  long  road.  We  saw 
how,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  it  was  beginning 
to  change  its  color  and  look  towards  a  political 
programme.  Through  Rousseau  it  takes  the  field. 
"  Man  is  born  free  and  everywhere  he  is  in  chains."  16° 
It  is  proclaimed  that  the  masses  of  men  have  lost 
their  title-deeds.  Society  is  indicted  for  having  se- 
questered them.  "  Natural  Law  "  means  an  ideal  code 
once  possessed,  afterwards  lost.  The  rights  of  man 
have  taken  a  long  slumber.  Now  they  awake,  and 
the  awakening  is  the  Revolution. 

To  turn  from  Rousseau  to  Kant  is  to  change  one's 
climate.  Yet  when  we  get  to  the  bottom,  we  find 
that  they  are  wholly  at  one  in  this,  that  they  give, 
each  in  his  own  way,  the  signature  of  a  new  age. 
What  Rousseau  is  to  sociology,  that  is  Kant  to  phi- 
losophy. But  Kant  is  the  more  significant  of  the  two 
by  far,  even  after  the  difference  of  field  has  been 
allowed  for.  He  said  with  truth  concerning  his  own 
work  that  its  effect  was  like  the  effect  of  the  Coperni- 
can  astronomy, —  a  radical  change  in  the  total  point 
of  view.  He  completed  the  process  which  Socrates 
began,  of  shifting  the  centre  of  gravity  in  philosophic 
thought  from  the  outer  to  the  inner  world.  Philoso- 
phy had  set  out  on  her  journey  by  making  conscious- 
ness an  incident  in  the  cosmic  process.  Socrates 
undertook  to  study  the  life  of  humanity  as  if  it 
were  central  in  that  world  which  is  a  world  for  us. 
His  handiwork,  however,  was  only  half  done.  Nor 
did  Plato  and  Aristotle  complete  it.  The  objective 
or  outer  life  of  the  universe  still  kept,  in  large  meas- 


viii  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  295 

ure,  the  power  of  the  keys.  Through  Kant  the  sub- 
jective or  inner  life  acquired  that  power  for  the  first 
time. 

Do  we,  though,  need  to  call  him  into  the  witness- 
stand  ?  Have  we  not  already  done  enough  wander- 
ing ?  We  are  not  wandering.  We  are  studying  the 
make  of  modern  consciousness  in  relation  to  the  social 
question,  and  trying  to  understand  how  it  has  become 
what  it  is.  Now,  whether  or  no  we  believe  in  phi- 
losophy as  a  present  need,  we  can  surely  all  agree 
that  philosophic  thought,  taken  in  bulk,  is  a  most 
essential  part  of  the  past  intellectual  history  of  our 
race.  Probably,  too,  we  can  all  agree  that  it  is  the 
most  significant  part.  Science  is  in  the  saddle  now. 
But  it  was  only  yesterday  that  she  got  there ;  while, 
time  out  of  mind  before  yesterday,  philosophy  claimed 
to  be  the  sovereign  exercise  of  reason,  and  found  very 
few  to  dispute  the  claim.  We  may  therefore  safely  as- 
sume that  the  most  vital  changes  in  humanity's  opin- 
ions about  humanity  have  been  best  recorded  there. 
Better  than  in  Christian  dogma,  because  philoso- 
phy has  always  been  nearer  the  earth  than  dogma, 
and  because  it  is  a  surer  test  of  what  has  really 
passed  into  the  blood  of  the  laity  and  become  part 
and  parcel  of  permanent  lay-consciousness.  Better 
than  the  law,  because  the  law  necessarily  keeps  as 
close  as  it  can  to  existing  conditions ;  and,  content  to 
gain  an  inch  at  a  time,  never  indulges  in  what  it  con- 
siders the  perilous  rapture  of  prophecy.  But  phi- 
losophy, while  it  indicates,  better  than  dogma  can, 
what  has  actually  entered  the  tissue  of  the  lay  mind, 
looks  more  to  the  open  sea  than  the  law  dares,  and 
$o  lets  us  deeper  into  the  heart  of  a  humanity  that 


296  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

is  kept  alive  by  its  brave  dreams.  Therefore  Kant, 
the  supremely  significant  figure  in  philosophy  since 
Aristotle,  who,  for  us  moderns,  if  we  could  longer  give 
such  a  title  to  any  single  reason,  might  hope  to  wrest 
from  the  great  Greek  the  proud  title  Dante  gave  him, 
—  "  the  master  of  those  who  think,"  -  —  Kant  is  the  man 
to  whom  we  must  go  in  order  to  find  out  how  much 
of  the  higher  work  of  Greece  and  Rome  as  it  bore 
upon  our  question,  and  above  all,  how  much  of  the 
Biblical  view  of  the  world,  was  accepted  by  modern 
reason  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  part  and  parcel 
of  itself. 

Look  back  from  Kant  to  Greek  philosophy  as  a 
whole,  and  we  become  aware  of  a  vast  change. 
Speaking  abstractly,  it  consists  in  the  reversal  of 
the  relationship  between  Metaphysic  and  Ethic. 
The  Greek  reason  built  the  latter  upon  the  former, 
and  the  whole  Christian  world,  so  far  as  theory  went, 
followed  its  example.  Kant,  on  the  contrary,  built 
Metaphysic  upon  Ethic.  Speaking  more  in  the  con- 
crete, the  change  is  summed  up  by  saying  that  the 
Greek  reason  made  the  ought-to-be  a  fringe  of  the 
is,  while  Kant  made  the  ought-to-be  the  life-blood  of 
the  is.  I  would  not  be  understood  as  making  the 
distinction  between  the  contemplative  reason  and  the 
creative  will  so  deep  that  it  turns  into  a  separation. 
Victor  Hugo  says  truly  that  he  who  thinks  wills  :  only 
the  dreamer  is  a  passive  instrument.  The  will  and  the 
reason  cannot  be  separated.  Yet,  when  we  compare 
Greek  philosophy  taken  in  bulk  with  the  philosophy 
that  must  rise  upon  Kant's  foundation,  if  the  world  is 
ever  to  have  a  philosophy  again,  we  perceive  a  real 
antithesis.  Greek  philosophy  took  the  total  of  being 


vin  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  297 

as  a  finished  total.  It  was  static.  But  modern  phi- 
losophy, driven  by  the  problem  of  knowledge  to  look 
within,  is  forced  to  look  upon  truth  as  just  an  infinite 
relationship.  There  is  no  possibility  of  knowing  truth 
as  a  quantity.  Truth  for  us  is  an  infinite  quality  called 
"  truthfulness."  And  we  cannot  be  saved  by  attaining 
finished  conceptions.  In  our  most  finished  synthesis 
vastly  more  must  forever  be  outside  than  in.  We  are 
saved  only  by  trust  in  the  worth-while  of  truthfulness. 
Our  conceptions  lose  all  claim  to  finality  and  become 
ideals  which  spur  and  inspire  us.  Knowledge,  while 
it  is  in  a  measure  an  acquirement,  is  essentially  a  duty. 
The  depth  and  scope  of  the  new  view  of  truth 
cannot  for  our  subject  be  overstated.  Kant  was 
laboring  in  the  cause  of  Democracy,  and  undoing  the 
intellectualism  which  is  forever  trying  to  set  up  a  club 
for  culture  as  the  main  thing  for  an  educated  man. 
The  Ethic  which  has  an  intellectualistic  base  is  nec- 
essarily aristocratic  in  tendency.  If  the  Best  is  some- 
thing that  can  be  known  only  by  pure  reason,  and  if 
only  the  few  can  know  it,  then  Plato's  Republic  must 
sooner  or  later  be  substituted  for  the  American  Con- 
stitution. But  if  philosophy  must  either  cease  to  be 
or  find  an  ethical  basis,  if  the  wisest  man  is  able  to 
preserve  himself  from  a  scepticism  that  would  end  by 
making  him  eat  his  own  heart,  solely  through  an  act 
of  trust,  constantly  renewed,  in  the  worth-while  of 
reason,  then  the  philosopher  belongs  to  a  community, 
all  of  whose  members  are  saved  in  the  same  way. 
He  and  the  motorman  have  the  same  footing. 
A  metaphysical  foundation  for  Ethic  went  along 
with  the  limited  free  State  of  Greece.  The  ethical 
foundation  of  Metaphysic  is  the  intellectual  equiva- 


298          GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

lent  of  the  universal  free  State  which  is  the  goal  of 
modernity. 

Therefore  it  was  not  a  freak  on  the  part  of  univer- 
sal history  that  made  Kant  a  contemporary  of  the 
French  Revolution.  Kant  owed  a  great  deal  to 
Rousseau.  He  says  about  himself:  "I  am  by  incli- 
nation an  investigator.  I  feel  the  whole  thirst  after 
knowledge.  .  .  .  There  was  a  time  when  I  thought 
that  all  this  could  make  the  honor  of  humanity,  and  I 
despised  the  multitude  who  have  knowledge  of  nothing. 
Rousseau  set  me  right.  My  imaginary  advantage 
disappeared.  I  learn  to  honor  men,  and  would  feel 
myself  far  more  useless  than  the  common  laborer, 
did  I  not  believe  that  my  work  .  .  .  would  establish 
the  Rights  of  Mankind."  151  Paulsen,  commenting  on 
these  words,  says  with  entire  truth  :  "  That  the  worth 
of  man  lies  in  Will, —  not  in  knowledge,  as  the  aristo- 
cratic would-be  culture  fancies, —  is  the  central  point 
around  which  the  whole  of  Kant's  philosophy  turns." 

Philosophy's  one  aim  is  to  see  the  world  in  the 
light  of  unity.  The  mind  begins  its  career  by  a 
child-like  trust  in  things  as  they  strike  the  eye. 
Then  appearances  collide.  Difficulty  and  wonder- 
ment and  doubt  result.  Philosophy  endeavors  to 
gain  a  lasting  unitary  view  of  the  universe  by  going 
below  appearances  to  law.  The  lesson  of  Kant's 
philosophy  is  that  no  unitary  view  is  possible,  save 
on  the  basis  of  an  ethic  that  levels  all  aristocratic 
differences,  and  makes  the  individualization  of  the 
common  man  the  goal  of  history.  No  rational  view 
of  the  universe  is  possible  unless  it  rests  upon  Ethic. 
And  there  is  no  ultimate  Ethic  save  the  Ethic  of 
Democracy.  Kant  and  Rousseau,  taken  together, 


viii  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  299 

seen  in  their  radical  difference  of  personality  and 
method,  and  at  the  same  time  in  their  community  of 
interest,  conspire  to  show  that  the  social  question  is 
henceforward  a  part  of  the  very  tissue  of  all  idealistic 
thinking.  The  mind  and  the  conscience,  the  whole 
treasure  of  modernity,  is  at  stake  in  it. 

The  thoughts  of  men  are  as  constituent  a  part  of 
the  universe  as  the  blessed  sun  himself,  and  just  as 
little  may  fail  of  their  effect.  Destructive  radicals, 
who  would  make  their  break  with  the  Christian  past 
clean  and  complete,  may  speak  as  they  will  about 
myth ;  but  the  deep  stream  of  feeling,  upon  which 
the  "  myth  "  floated,  cannot  be  destroyed  by  the  most 
violent  use  of  underground  explosives.  The  bed  of 
the  stream  may  be  somewhat  altered,  but  the  stream 
flows  on.  Science  has  weakened  the  belief  in  the 
freedom  of  the  will.  Many  scientists,  while  hard  at 
this  work,  with  the  same  breath  lump  the  vast  bulk 
of  Christian  dogma  under  the  title  "  illusion."  But 
their  two  thoughts  are  impossible  bed-fellows.  The 
denial  of  freedom  to  the  will  draws  after  it  the  denial 
of  the  mind's  ability  to  create  something  out  of  noth- 
ing. The  "  illusions  "  of  Christianity  are  a  most  sub- 
stantial part  of  the  marrow  of  history. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  the  proving-ground  of 
the  great  conceptions  which  had  been  slowly  forming 
through  two  thousand  years  and  more.  The  uni- 
versal individual  taking  the  field  in  the  full  armor  of 
theory  gained  for  the  moment  a  complete  victory 
over  the  concrete  or  historical  individual,  and  over 
all  the  institutions  that  housed  him.  The  old  things 
were  thrown  into  the  shade  by  the  new.  Bacon  said, 
"  We  are  the  ancients."  Chesterfield  called  Homer's 


300  GENESIS   OF  THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE          CHAP. 

heroes  "  porters."  Volney  cried,  "  Cease  to  admire 
those  ancients."  The  men  of  '89  undertook  to  cre- 
ate a  new  calendar.  But  the  victory  was  short-lived. 
There  came  the  reaction  called  Romanticism,  the 
necessary  protest  against  the  revolutionary  scorn  for 
the  old  things ;  for  a  while  men  loved  the  very  dirt 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Finally  the  torrent  of  reaction 
exhausted  itself,  and  then  the  literary  and  philosophic 
consciousness  of  Europe,  having  learned  from  the 
eighteenth  century  the  worth  of  the  new  without 
accepting  its  underestimate  of  the  old,  and  having 
learned  from  Romanticism  reverence  for  the  past 
without  idealizing  its  darkness  and  dirt,  joined  forces 
with  the  rising  power  of  science  to  shift  the  centre  of 
human  feeling  from  the  transcendent  to  the  immanent 
view  of  life. 

To  a  careless  eye  it  would  appear  as  if  we  were 
back  upon  Greek  ground.  History  however  never 
repeats  herself,  and  least  of  all  in  this  affair.  When 
consciousness,  after  so  long  an  absence,  returned  to 
the  immanent  view  of  things,  it  came  with  full  hands. 
The  transcendent  view  had  set  up  a  strong  protest 
against  the  ethical  validity  of  the  present  social  con- 
stitution. The  protest  is  more  or  less  absorbed  and 
assimilated  by  the  new  conception.  The  result  is  a 
temperament  vastly  unlike  the  Greek,  even  where  the 
two  seem  to  stand  side  by  side.  The  change  shows 
itself  in  the  first  place  in  a  different  estimate  of  the 
individual  in  art.  For  example,  classic  art  empha- 
sized the  symmetrical  and  the  harmonious,  while 
modern  art  emphasizes  the  characteristic.152  In  the 
second  place,  while  Greek  consciousness  had  a  horror 
of  the  infinite,  modernity  loves  it.  A  good  illustra- 


vin  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  301 

tion  might  be  found  in  the  poetical  history  of  the  sea. 
Antiquity's  aesthetic  dislike  of  it  may  in  part  be  ex- 
plained by  the  difference  of  race  and  by  advances  in 
the  art  of  navigation.  But  the  main  element  in1  the 
explanation  is  a  temperamental  change.  To  us  the 
vast  is  dear  for  its  own  sake.  The  vague  has  no  ter- 
rors. We  rather  advance  into  it  with  the  joy  of  the 
lover  and  the  eagerness  of  the  explorer.  Our  Nature- 
Sense  has  a  quality  different  from  that  of  the  ancients. 
Even  in  the  experience  of  those  who  have  altogether 
cast  off  the  belief  in  immortality  and  for  whom  the 
visible  world  is  the  only  world,  the  effects  of  the 
long  rule  of  Christianity  over  the  will  and  imagination 
of  the  Occident  may  be  plainly  seen.  The  unseen 
world,  while  it  is  denied,  still  persists  in  consciousness. 
Sovereign  object  of  the  heart's  desires  in  the  picked 
men  and  women  of  so  many  generations,  it  has  given 
the  mind  a  bent  and  bias  that  cannot  easily  be  with- 
stood. The  world  that  is  unseen  presses  in  upon  the 
world  we  see  with  such  weight  and  power  that  Nature 
loses  much  of  her  substantial  character  and  becomes 
a  symbol.  Although  the  immortality  of  the  soul  be 
disbelieved  in,  nevertheless  that  which  the  dogma 
stands  for,  namely  the  hunger  for  an  infinite  good, 
the  consuming  thirst  for  an  unstinted  and  "  unanx- 
ious  beauty "  of  holiness,  the  impassioned  longing 
after  a  will  that  is  all  of  one  piece  in  its  grasp  of 
righteousness  —  these  emotional  forces  are  behind 
and  within  the  eye  that  looks  on  Nature.  Sensation 
has  in  us  a  depth  and  reach  which  it  could  not  have 
in  the  ancients.  It  is  pregnant  with  suggestions  of 
the  infinite.  The  wild  rose  cannot  forget  her  kinship 
with  the  mystic  rose  of  Dante. 


302          GENESIS   OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE         CHAP. 

Modern  consciousness,  then,  is  alive  at  every  point 
with  the  feeling  of  individuality  and  with  the  feeling 
of  the  infinite.  The  two  are  one.  The  man  who  is 
greatly  individual  must  needs  be  an  idealist  of  a  great- 
hearted kind ;  for  in  the  degree  that  we  are  truly 
individual,  truly  makers  and  masters  of  ourselves, 
does  our  faith  give  to  us  in  fee  broad  spaces  of 
possibility  in  self-development  outlying  beyond  our 
present  character,  and  calling  to  the  manly  will  in 
us,  even  as  our  rich  prairies  a  generation  ago  called 
to  the  plough.  To  be  downright  individual  is  to 
have  a  sturdy  conviction  that  the  potential  is  vastly 
greater  than  the  actual ;  and  this  is  the  working  con- 
ception of  the  infinite. 

The  main  source  of  what  is  most  characteristic  in 
our  literature  and  music  and  art  is  identical  with  the 
main  source  of  what  is  most  prophetic  in  our  political 
and  social  theory.  It  is  that  new  definition  of  man 
which  gave  to  the  principle  of  individuality  a  root  as 
deep  as  the  bottom  of  things  and  an  authority  com- 
mensurate with  the  whole  being  of  God.  The  soul 
has  entered  the  State.  The  State  has  acquired  some 
of  the  prerogatives  of  the  Church,  and  is  likely  to  ac- 
quire more ;  for  the  career  of  the  free  State  has  barely 
begun.  The  creation  of  a  united  Germany,  the  birth 
of  Italian  unity,  the  rise  of  Japan,  the  vast  expansion 
of  lay  education  through  the  public  school  and  the 
university,  and  many  another  feature  of  contemporary 
life,  tell  us  with  unmistakable  emphasis  that  for  an  in- 
definite stretch  of  centuries  in  the  future  the  concep- 
tion of  the  State  is  bound  to  gain  steadily  in  spiritual 
significance,  and  in  the  power  to  command  the  spirit 
and  imagination  of  our  picked  men  and  women. 


vni  GENESIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  303 

Some  will  think  that  the  State  has  been  stealing 
clothes  from  the  Church.  But  it  is  rather  the  case 
that  the  Church  herself  is  entering  a  new  phase  of 
her  history.  All  the  inherited  dogmas  of  Christianity 
were  shaped  in  a  period  when  the  State  was  either 
moribund  or  else  possessed  no  first-hand  spiritual 
significance.  But  now  the  State  receives  its  title 
direct  from  God  and  the  sunshine.  The  Church 
therefore  is  facing  a  new  fact  which  has  a  central 
position  in  the  spiritual  order  of  things.  Christianity 
is  to  triumph  in  the  great  debate  now  beginning, 
which  we  call  comparative  religion,  by  proving  that 
the  Christian  view  of  the  universe,  as  it  is  embodied 
in  the  person  of  Christ,  is  alone  able  to  endow  the 
principle  of  individuality  with  sovereign  authority  in 
history.  The  Church  must  put  herself  forward  as 
the  ally  and  interpreter  of  the  free  State. 

And  the  State?  Every  form  of  political  and 
social  organization  lays  a  tax  upon  the  will.  And 
the  weight  of  the  tax  varies  with  the  breadth  of  the 
ideal  enshrined  within  the  organization.  In  an  an- 
cient Oriental  despotism  taxes  on  property  were 
heavy.  But  the  tax  on  the  will  was  light.  The  stuff 
of  conscience  was  small  in  quantity  because  the  reach 
of  responsibility  was  short.  In  a  Greek  Democracy 
the  tax  on  the  will  was  far  heavier.  The  State  was 
not  an  external  authority.  On  the  contrary  it  was 
the  citizen's  larger  self.  So  his  responsibilities  reached 
out  and  multiplied.  He  was  obliged  to  find  himself, 
and  be  at  home,  in  a  larger  number  of  relationships. 

Modern  or  universalistic  Democracy  lays  on  the 
will  the  heaviest  tax  of  all.  The  stuff  of  conscience 
is  indefinitely  great.  The  sincere  believer  in  Democ- 


304        GENESIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE     CHAP,  vm 

racy  must  have  a  dogmatic  conviction  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuality  shall  some  time  have  the  widest 
possible  spread.  His  right  to  be  an  individual  him- 
self puts  him  under  the  highest  conceivable  obligation 
to  create  individuality  in  others.  He  is  a  gentleman 
in  the  true  democratic  sense,  just  in  the  measure  that 
he  has  the  art  of  finding  himself  in  an  ever-growing 
number  of  persons  of  all  sorts  and  conditions. 

He  is  not  a  political  atom,  such  as  the  eighteenth 
century  speculated  on.  Strip  him  of  his  connections 
with  his  fellows  and  he  is  nothing.  He  must  be  at 
home  in  relationships,  and  in  a  far  greater  number  of 
them  than  the  Greek  conceived  to  be  necessary.  He 
must  carry  the  campaign  against  caste  into  larger 
issues.  He  must  face  all  that  is  disagreeable  and 
problematic  in  Democracy,  concealing  nothing,  blink- 
ing nothing  away.  And  at  the  same  time  he  must 
keep  his  will  strong  and  tempered,  so  that  its  edge 
shall  never  turn.  To  meet  all  his  social  obligations 
heartily,  to  pay  all  his  political  debts  joyously,  never 
to  throw  a  glance  over  his  shoulder  at  the  monastery 
—  this  is  a  mighty  day's  work. 

From  what  source  shall  the  social  will  of  De- 
mocracy draw  its  food  ?  Within  what  view  of  the , 
universe  shall  it  get  its  breeding  ?  Just  as  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  future  must  look  more  and  more  to 
the  needs  of  the  free  State,  even  so  must  the  free 
State  look  more  and  more  towards  the  Christian 
interpretation  of  life  in  man  and  in  God,  as  the  Bible 
bears  witness  to  it.  Here  is  to  be  the  proving  ground 
of  the  ideals  that  shall  permanently  sway  mankind. 
This  is  the  place  where  Church  and  State  are  to  work 
out  the  problem  of  their  relation  to  one  another. 


NOTES 


WHEREVER  POSSIBLE,  REFERENCES  TO  THE  FATHERS  ARE  TO  THE  TRANSLATIONS 
EDITED  BY  SCHAFF  AND  WAGE,  OTHERWISE  TO  MIGNE. 


1  Coulanges :  Cite"  Antique  (15"  ed.  p.  106). 

2  Hearne  :  The  Aryan  Household,  p.  475. 

8  Sir  Henry  Maine  :  Early  History  of  Institutions,  p.  384. 

4  Bagehot :  Physics  and  Politics  (Internat.  Sc.  Ser.),  p.  21. 

5  Bagehot :  Physics  and  Politics,  p.  27. 

6  Polybius  (ed.  Tauchnitz),  Proem.  III.  4. 

1  E.  G.  Melito :  Eusebius,  Praep.  Ev.  (ed.  Teubner),  I.  4.  4. 

8  Guizot :  Hist,  of  Civilization  in  Europe,  1st  Lee. 

9  Hippolytus  :  Refutation  of  All  Heresies,  Bk.  7,  c.  15. 

10  Winwood  Reade  :  Martyrdom  of  Man,  p.  521. 

11  Augustine  :  City  of  God,  Bk.  4,  c.  31. 

12  Cicero:  Pro  Balbo,  13. 

18  Lightfoot :   Biblical  Essays,  p.  202. 

14  Ulpian:  Dig.,  Bk.  I,  tit.  17-32. 

15  Ulpian:  Dig.,  Bk.  I,  tit.  1-4. 

16  Institutes  of  Justinian,  Bk.  i,  tit.  I. 

17  Martineau  :  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  I.  392. 

18  Aristotle:  Pol.  I.  i. 

19  Siebeck:  Religionsphil.,  S.  123. 

20  Trendelenburg :  Naturrecht  (2C  aufl.),  S.  391. 

21  J.  H.  Fichte:  Ethik,  I.  S.  19. 

22  Stopford  Brooke  :  Theology  in  the  English  Poets. 
28  Maine :  Ancient  Law  (3d  Am.  ed.),  p.  299. 

24  Lactantius  :  Institutes,  VI.  u. 

x  305 


306  NOTES 

25  Tertullian :  De  Virg.,  Vel.  i . 

26  Lactantius  :  Institutes,  V.  14.  9. 

27  Ambrose:  The  Duties  of  the  Clergy,  I.  29. 

28  Praep.  Ev.  (ed.  Teubner),  I.  5.  12;  VII.  3;  VII.  6,  etc. 

29  Quoted  in  Ramsay :  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  345. 

30  Tertullian:  The  SouPs  Testimony,  i. 

81  Tertullian  :  Apol.,  46. 

82  Tertullian  :  Apol.,  36. 

33  Chrysostom  :  On  Eph.  IV.  4  ff. ;  On  Matt.,  Horn.  79. 

84  Athenagoras  :  Plea  for  the  Christians,  35. 

85  Windelband :    History  of    Philosophy,   p.    228.      See   also 
Zeller:  Ph.  d.  Gr.,  I.  S.  121. 

36  Zur  Genealogie  d.  Moral,  quoted  by  Siebeck  :  Religionsphil., 
S.  iiof. 

87  Seneca,  Ep.  53 

88  Cicero  :  De  Nat.  Deor.,  III.  36. 

39  Lecky:  Hist,  of  Europ.  Morals  (3d  ed.),  I.  195. 

40  Paulsen:  Ethik,  I.  S.  140. 

41  Burckhardt :  Die  Zeit  Constantius  d.  Gr.,  S.  414. 

42  Uhlhorn  :  Die  christ.  Liebesthatigheit,  I.  36. 
48  Chrysostom  :  On  Psalm,  48. 

44  Chrysostom  :  On  Matt.  xxv.  35  ff. 

45  Chrysostom:  On  Matt.,  Horn.  79. 

46  Augustine  :  On  Matt.,  Horn.  29. 

47  Hernias  :  Sim.  2. 

48  Isidore:  Sententiae  III.  60.  13. 

49  Uhlhorn:  ib.,  I.  S.  150. 

50  Uhlhorn:  ib.,  II.,  8.42. 

81  Gregory  the  Great :  Opera,  V.  1030. 

62  In  Baudrillat:  Hist,  de  Luxe,  I.  117. 

63  Ramsay:  ib.,  pp.  432-437. 

64  Plotinus  (ed.  Kirchhoff),  XXVI.  22. 

65  Burckhardt :  ib.,  214  ff. 

56  Paulsen  :  Ethik,  I.  S.  379  f. 

57  Riehm:  Altest.  Theol.,  S.  23.     See  also  Zeller:  Ph.  d.  Gr. 
I.  124-127. 

58  Lactantius:  Institutes,  III.  n.  5. 
69  Harnack :  Dogmengesh.,  II.  57  ff. 

60  In  Luthardt:  Gesch.  d.  christ.  Ethik,  I.  S.  202. 


NOTES  307 

61  Wundt :  Ethik,  S.  85. 

62  Epictetus:  Manual,  51.  I. 

63  Life  of  Lycurgus. 

64  Bosanquet:  History  of  Esthetic,  pp.  10-17. 

65  Quoted  in  Adams :  Hist,  of  U.  S.,  1    147. 

66  Dankwardt :  Nationalokonomie  u.  Jurisprudence,  I.  28  ff. 

67  De  Offic.,  II.  25. 

68  Manual  (Long's  translation),  39. 

69  Life  of  Lycurgus. 

70  Baudrillat :  #.,  I.  537. 

71  Lange :  Gesch.  d.  Materialism.,  II.  458. 

72  Nilus :  De  Monast.  Exercit.,  c.  20. 
78  Antiq.,  I.  2.  i. 

74  Apostol.  Consts.,  I.  8. 

76  Peed.,  III.  3. 
7«P«£d.,  III.  ii. 

77  De  Hab.  Virg.,  14  and  15. 

78  In  Martineau:  Types,  etc.,  I.  277. 

79  Baur:  Church  History.  I.  193. 

80  Windelband :  Hist,  of  Ph.,  251. 

81  Bosanquet:  Hist,  of  Esthetic,  132  f. 

82  Pol.,  III.  7- 
MSiebeck:  #.,  S.  119. 

84  Life  of  Lycurgus  (dough's  translation). 

85  Sacrifice  of  Abel  and  Cain,  6  and  8. 
88  Haer.,  c.  80. 

87  Letter  to  Rusticus,  11. 

88  Paed.,  II.  12. 

89  Quaestiones,  XII. 

90  Letter  to  Hedibrius. 

«  In  Uhlhorn  :  it.,  I.  289. 

92  Letter  to  Eustachius,  31. 

98  Letter  to  Paulus,  2. 

94  Apostol.  Const,  VII.  12. 

98  Discourse  on  Inequality  (in  Morley's  Rousseau,  p.  112). 

96  On  the  Gospel  of  John,  Tract.  25  and  26. 

97  De  volunt.  paupertat.,  13  and  18. 

98  Jerome  :  Letter  to  Rusticus,  7. 

99  Augustine  :  Morals  of  the  Cath.  Ch.,  78. 


308  NOTES 

100  Janet:  Hist.  d.  1.  Science  Politique  (3*  ed.),  I.  311. 

101  Ep.  of  Pope  Urban  First. 

102  Duties  of  the  Clergy,  I.  c.  28. 
108  Baudrillat :  Bodin,  p.  23,  note. 

104  On  Eccles.,  Horn.  2. 

105  Apostol.  Const.,  VI.  23. 

106  Salmasius  :  De  Usur.,  p.  668. 

107  Apostolic  Canons,  XLIV. ;  Nicaea,  XVII. ;  Hippo,  XXII. 
Laod.,  IV. 

108  Dale :  Synod  of  Elvira,  p.  177. 

109  Salmasius:  ib.,  VI.  f. 

110  Pseud.  Is.  213. 

111  Wundt :  Ethik,  S.  679-684. 

112  Anc.  Rdg.,  I.  p.  3. 

118  Montalembert :  Monks  of  the  West,  I.  348. 

114  Montalembert :  ib.,  I.  55. 

115  Inst,  V.  14  and  15. 

116  St.  Asterius  Armasenus :  Horn.  adv.  Avaritiam. 

117  City  of  God,  XIX.  12. 

118  On  Eph.,  Horn.  22. 

119  On  Jeremiah,  Horn.  12. 

120  Janet :  ib.,l.  295. 

121  Lightfoot :  Notes  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  p.  229. 

122  Riehm  :  ib.,  S.  207. 

128  Hist,  of  Israel,  V.  p.  361. 

124  Quinet:  Christianism  et  1.  ReV.  Franc.,  p.  101. 

™  ib. 

126  Eccles.  Pol.,  8th  Bk. 

127  Ancient  Law,  p.  89  f. 

128  Paine:  Rights  of  Man  (ed.  Belfdrd  and  Clark),  p.  275. 

129  Ed.  Bohn. 

130  Morley :  Voltaire  (2d  ed.),  p.  57. 

181  Green:  H.  of  Eng.  People,  I.  266. 

182  Aquinas  :  Summa,  XC.-CVIII. 

133  Defensor  Pacis,  Prt.  I.  c.  XII.  (in  Morley's  Rousseau,  p.  323). 

184  Tocqueville :  Anc.  Reg.,  Bk.  2,  c.  7. 

185  Quoted  by  Tocqueville  :  ib. 

186  #.,  Bk.  3,  c.  i. 

187  Burke:  Works  (ed.  Bohn),  II.  285. 


NOTES  309 

188  See  Janet :  t'd.,  Introduction. 

189  Ancient  Rome,  XIX. 

140  Quesnay :  CEuvres  (ed.  Oncken),  p.  97. 

141  ib.,  p.  100. 

142  Baynes'  translation,  p.  274. 
148  Paulsen  :  Ethik,  I.  S.  90. 

144  Martineau  :  Types,  etc.,  I.  44. 

145  In  Morley:  Rousseau,  p.  425. 

146  Confessions,  VI.  8.  298. 

147  Confessions,  IX.  270-274. 

148  Discourse  on  Inequality. 

149  Renan  :  Hist,  of  Israel,  V.  361. 

150  Opening  Words  of  The  Social  Contract. 

151  Werke,  Ed.  Rosencrauz,XI.  S.  240.     In  Paulsen  :  Ethik,  I. 
S.  178. 

162  Bosanquet :  ib.,  c.  i. 


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